Penn State football improved to 5-0 this season after taking down Purdue 35-7 at Beaver Stadium.

The Nittany Lions’ offense got off to a red-hot start against the Boilermakers by scoring four touchdowns on its first four possessions. However, the unit managed just one touchdown after that and struggled throughout the final two quarters of the game. Meanwhile, Penn State’s defense was truly dominant against the Boilermakers’ offense.

Here are our grades for Penn State’s performance on Saturday afternoon.

Quarterback: B

Sean Clifford was fairly critical of himself in his post-game media availability, but overall, he played well Saturday afternoon.

Clifford went 20-for-29 with 264 passing yards, four total touchdowns, and an interception. That’s a great final stat-line, but those numbers don’t tell the full story of his game. Clifford scored all four of his touchdowns and passed for 163 yards in the first 15:43 of the game, but totaled just 101 passing yards and a pick throughout the final two-plus quarters.

The quarterback boiled down his team’s lack of offensive success to its inability to “finish” after its hot start, and the unit definitely has lots of work to do before it goes to Kinnick Stadium for a match-up against No. 17 Iowa.

On the bright side, Clifford’s first two touchdown passes to KJ Hamler and Jahan Dotson were things of beauty. Dotson may have stolen the show on his 72-yard score, but Clifford found his reliable wideout in space and put a dime of a throw right in his arms. Hamler’s touchdown was the result of a well-run corner route and an even better lob pass to the end zone.

Running Backs: B+

Penn State’s offense finally decided to give Noah Cain, who had his best game as a Nittany Lion on Saturday, an extended look.

Cain finished with a career-high 12 carries for 105 yards and a touchdown. James Franklin has talked about how Cain’s game isn’t flashy all year, but he’s also acknowledged how effective the true freshman is with consistent gains of at least four yards. He also chipped in 25 receiving yards on three grabs.

None of Penn State’s running backs stood out beyond Cain. Devyn Ford finished with the second-most yards among the Nittany Lions’ backs with 38 on seven carries, and Journey Brown had a fairly quiet day with just 21 yards on five attempts. Cain definitely gave himself a chance to earn more snaps going forward, which Franklin noted postgame.

Although he didn’t turn the ball over, Ricky Slade was very ineffective when the ball was in his hands. Slade posted just two yards on four carries and consistently struggled to generate positive yardage. Cain could leapfrog the true sophomore on the Nittany Lions’ Iowa week depth chart.

Wide Receivers: B+

Jahan Dotson and KJ Hamler were the star pupils among Penn State’s wide receivers on Saturday afternoon.

Dotson made the play of the game on his 72-yard score, but he didn’t really factor into the game beyond that. He made just one other grab for seven yards while Hamler hauled in three passes for 41 yards and a score.

That man Jahan Dotson just juked Purdue all the way back to West Lafayette pic.twitter.com/jr57BouFqo

— Onward State (@OnwardState) October 5, 2019

Daniel George got his first career start at wide receiver due to the absences of Justin Shorter and Cam Sullivan-Brown, but he saw little action. George was only targeted twice, but he hauled in both of those passes for 31 yards.

Penn State clearly has a dynamic pair of receivers in Hamler and Dotson, but depth at the position may be a bit of a concern after just four receivers (Hamler, Dotson, George, and Dan Chisena) caught passes Saturday. Granted, the absences of Shorter and Sullivan-Brown didn’t help, but players like Weston Carr and Mac Hippenhammer were nowhere to be seen.

Tight Ends: A-

Nick Bowers is growing into quite the player for Penn State’s offense. He finished second on the team with 66 receiving yards. Pat Freiermuth — who scored his first touchdown since week 2 on Saturday — is clearly this team’s top tight end, but Bowers is no slouch ay No. 2.

Freiermuth made three grabs for just 16 yards, but his 7-yard touchdown at the start of the second quarter put Penn State up by four scores.

Penn State ran quite a few two-tight end sets featuring both Freiermuth and Bowers on Saturday. Going forward, those formations may prove to be invaluable to the Nittany Lions’ offense — especially against a big, physical Iowa team this weekend.

Offensive Line: A-

Sean Clifford was only sacked once against Purdue, but the Boilermakers did manage to post seven tackles-for-loss against Penn State. That’s a single complaint about what was otherwise a very strong day for Penn State’s offensive line.

The line paved the way for 196 yards on the ground by the Nittany Lions.

There were times when the offensive line couldn’t pave the way for its running backs — think Ricky Slade’s four carries for two yards — so it wasn’t a 100% perfect performance from the unit. Still, James Franklin has plenty of reasons to be confident in his line as his team enters the meat of its schedule.

Defensive Line: A+

Penn State’s defensive line absolutely controlled Saturday’s game when it was on the field, and its performance was the main reason why Purdue never had much of a chance to get in the game despite a sluggish offensive performance.

Sean Spencer’s Wild Dogs recorded eight of the Nittany Lions’ 10 total sacks against Purdue — the second-best in program history. Shaka Toney played exceptionally well on Saturday, and he had three sacks to show for it. Yetur Gross-Matos’ two-sack performance was his best of the season.

Starting defensive tackles Robert Windsor and Antonio Shelton both registered half of a sack on Saturday, too, and Fred Hansard got in on the fun with a solo sack of his own. The game looked more like organized bullying than an actual game of football whenever the Wild Dogs hounded Purdue quarterback Jack Plummer.

Although most will (understandably) focus on Penn State’s sack party, the unit played just as well against the run on Saturday. Purdue finished the game with -19 (yes, negative 19) yards on the ground, thanks in no small part to the defensive line’s swarming effort.

Linebackers: A

Jan Johnson’s quiet one-tackle game is the only possible fault to find in Penn State linebackers’ performance Saturday.

Micah Parsons played well with five stops and his first career sack at Beaver Stadium. Cam Brown also played well by posting three total tackles on Saturday, but the story of the game for Penn State’s linebackers was yet again the position’s depth.

Jesse Luketa and Ellis Brooks both had strong games in a back-up role once again. Luketa finished with three tackles while Brooks added another, and true freshman Brandon Smith’s four-tackle effort also gave the team a boost.

We all knew that the future of #LinebackerU is in good hands, but Saturday’s game served as even more assurance of a bright future.

Secondary: A-

Lamont Wade undoubtedly put together his best performance as a Penn State player against Purdue. He led the Nittany Lions with 11 tackles and was generally involved with nearly every play that Purdue tried to run.

Beyond Wade’s excellent performance, Penn State’s secondary had a quiet, if not solid, day. John Reid, Garrett Taylor, and Tariq Castro-Fields combined for four tackles, and the secondary held Jack Plummer and the Purdue offense to 123 passing yards.

A lot of the defense’s standout performance boils down to the excellent pass rush, but the secondary also played well Saturday.

Special Teams: C-

Special teams coordinator Joe Lorig will have a lot to talk about in his unit’s meetings throughout this week.

Penn State’s punt return game was largely useless, which is surprising because of KJ Hamler’s talent. The unit’s coverage didn’t give Hamler many opportunities to rattle off big returns, and when he did have time and space, he tried to do too much and ended up losing yardage. That’s not to mention the bizarre “muffed” punt in which the ball bounced off Jonathan Sutherland inadvertently and was recovered by Purdue.

Jordan Stout looked human at times Saturday, and I felt like a little kid finding out Santa Claus isn’t real while watching his kickoffs fall short of the end zone. Jake Pinegar also missed his only field goal try of the game, but he also managed to go 5-for-5 on extra points.

Penn State’s special teams has shown flashes of brilliance this season, but it needs to be better against Iowa on Saturday.