3B
TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com

after the Michigan State game, 
you could kind of feel the vibe with 
the players, especially with a guy 
like Trace McSorley, who didn’t play 
his best game that day. The offense 
as a whole struggled, only scoring 
17 points. He seemed kind of — he 
seemed very defeated after that 
game. But now I think they’ve kind 
of rebounded and yeah, this game 
right here is going to decide their 
season — whether or not they have a 
chance at a New Year’s Six bowl or 
whether they’re looking at, maybe 
like, a Holiday Bowl or an Outback 
Bowl or Citrus Bowl appearance or 
something like that.
I think of this as the toughest 
game on their whole schedule. 
This is tougher than the Ohio State 
game, because that’s a whiteout 
game at home. This is a road game 
in a stadium that the Penn State 
program has not had a lot of success 
at this century. So they seem ready 
for this game, but like I said, they 
treat every game the same — at least 
they put on that mirage that they do.
TMD: From a national perspective 
going into the year, the narrative 
around Penn State was, how are they 

gonna replace Saquon Barkley. How 
do you think they’ve replaced Saquon 
Barkley both on the field and from a 
leadership standpoint?
TK: Yeah, from a leadership 
standpoint, I don’t think there’s 
been any — they have plenty of 
good veterans on this team and 
quality leaders. Obviously with 
Trace McSorley they have that. 
And replacing (Barkley) from a 
production standpoint, I mean, 
James Franklin said before the year, 
you can’t replace Saquon Barkley 
because he’s a once-in-a — the 
program’s never gonna have a player 
like Saquon Barkley again, because 
just his innate talent and his work 
ethic and things like that, it’s just 
never gonna happen.
But in my opinion, and I’ve said 
this all year long, I think Miles 
Sanders is a better fit for this Penn 
State offense than Saquon was. 
Watching Saquon for three years 
and being a huge NFL fan like I am, 
I think Saquon is better fit for a pro-
style offense where the quarterback 
is under center, and Penn State never 
goes under center. So I think Miles 
Sanders is just more fit for this type 
of system. And, obviously, he doesn’t 
have the same numbers that Saquon 
did last year, but I still think he’s been 

incredibly productive. I mean, he 
had a game against Illinois in which 
he ran all over them. He had exactly 
200 yards and three touchdowns. 
He’s put up big numbers in just about 
every game except I think two: 
against Ohio State and then this past 
week against Iowa he didn’t really 
do much. But he didn’t have a lot of 
touches in either of those games for 
whatever reason.
Yeah, I think Miles Sanders is up 
there. When I mention (Michigan 
running back) Karan Higdon in 
the top three (running backs in the 
Big Ten), I think Miles Sanders is 
in the top three as well. I think he, 
(Wisconsin’s) Jonathan Taylor and 
Karan Higdon are the three best 
running backs in this conference. I 
think Sanders has done a very good 
job this season.
TMD: McSorley has taken a slight 
tick down, I would say, statistically 
this year. Have you seen any sort of 
drop-off, or is that not necessarily 
representative of how he’s been 
playing?
TK: Definitely passing, his stats 
are down (from what) they were 
the past two seasons. I think, just, 
with the way this offense has had to 
adjust and had to work this season, I 
wrote a story last week about Trace 

McSorley and his ability as a runner 
this season, because he’s become 
that. He’s no longer this player that 
is chucking it deep to his talented 
wide receivers and letting them go 
get it as a product of Joe Moorhead’s 
offense.
… But yeah, Trace McSorley the 
last two seasons had 10 total 300-
yard passing games — five in each 
season. This season, through eight 
games now, he doesn’t have any. 
I think he’s only thrown for over 
230 yards once. So, I mean, as a 
passer, yeah. The stats show that 
he’s taken a step back, and there 
have been some games where he 
hasn’t looked as accurate, but he’s 
really just getting no help from 
his wide receivers. I mean, one of 
the big talking points this entire 
season has been the inexperience 
of this wide receiver group and the 
drops that have plagued them. Even 
the veterans that they have like 
DeAndre Thompkins and Juwan 
Johnson haven’t been nearly as 
productive as many people thought 
they would coming into the year. 
The only two, receiving — reliable, 
consistent, receiving targets that 
McSorley has is redshirt freshman 
KJ Hamler … and then another 
freshman, true freshman tight end 

Pat Freiermuth who has been really 
impressive.
… (McSorley) has been whatever 
Penn State needs him to be, and I 
think that is the biggest thing this 
season for him. He’s still playing 
at a Heisman-caliber level in my 
opinion, and even though that’s not 
as a passer, it’s more as a runner, he’s 
still been incredibly impressive.
TMD: If Penn State’s gonna win 
this game, they need to do…?
TK: It’s gonna come down to, can 
they play well enough on offense to 
get the job done against this really 
talented Michigan defense.
TMD: Do you have a prediction?
TK: Like I said, I don’t really 
think it’s gonna be all that close. I 
think this Michigan team is really 
dominant, and like I said, Penn State 
in the past has not really had a lot 
of success at The Big House. And 
the offense, right now, is just not at 
the level where I can fathom them 
scoring more than, like, 20 points 
against a defense like this on the 
road. I mean, they struggled to move 
the ball against an Iowa team that 
really wasn’t that impressive to me 
on tape.
So, yeah, I think I’m gonna go 
somewhere around Michigan 31, 
Penn State 17.

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From Page 2B

AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
The Michigan and Penn State football teams will face off on Saturday for the first time since the Nittany Lions dominated the Wolverines, 42-13, in front of a whiteout crowd in State College last season.

