Penn State football’s defense was almost lights out in the team’s 34-12 drubbing of the West Virginia Mountaineers. KJ Winston and Jaylen Reed, the Nittany Lions’ veteran safeties, were a huge reason for the success.

Winston and Reed were all over the place. They patrolled anything and everything past the line of scrimmage at all times, putting together a show-stopping display with the final stat line displaying 21 combined total tackles, two pass breakups, one tackle for loss, and a forced fumble.

The duo helped wreak havoc on Mountaineer quarterback Garrett Greene, who appeared to be running for his life multiple times throughout the game. Although Greene wasn’t sacked by either of them, they chased him and disrupted his pass attempts.

The game began with Reed breaking up a deep pass intended for Traylon Ray at Penn State’s 45-yard line. Three plays later, Reed tackled running back CJ Donaldson and held him to only a three-yard gain.

“First me and KJ [Winston] was flying around, making plays that were coming to us, not forcing those plays, just being ourselves,” Reed said.

Reed wasn’t done after the first drive, though. On West Virginia’s first play of its second drive, Reed recovered a Greene fumble for his first career fumble recovery. Then, a drive later, the Detroit native gave Greene another headache by bringing him down for a nine-yard loss on a rushing play.

“I just feel like some of the plays I made today were closer to the ball and line of scrimmage, and being at that position by Coach Allen setting me up to be in that position, I feel like helped me a lot,” Reed said.

Despite playing more of a hybrid version of the position, Reed said he doesn’t feel any different as a player. If not different, he appeared better, as his nine total tackles were more than any game last season.

“I don’t think it’s any different,” he said. “I just feel like now, I’m just way more comfortable seeing the game differently. I feel like the game slowed down for me a lot. There was a lot of preparation that happened over this offseason. The new position I’m playing, back and forth from safety, allowed me to make plays that you couldn’t be in a position to before, so now I’m just making plays that come to me.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a big part of Penn State’s game plan was limiting West Virginia’s run game as much as possible. Greene is a mobile quarterback who found success on the ground last season with 772 yards and 13 touchdowns, while Donaldson and co-starter Jahiem White combined for 1,640 yards and 15 touchdowns. Although that may not be much, the bulk of their success came in the second half of the season.

“We knew that going into the game, Garrett [Greene] is a good quarterback, good offense, good run game,” Reed said. “That was the main thing we focused on and when it came down to it, we did what we were supposed to do.”

“I must respect their offensive line. They have a running quarterback that also makes it harder,” Winston echoed. “You never know if he’s going to keep [the ball] or hand off. And much credit to their running back.”

Throughout the week while that plan was being installed, Winston and Reed made sure to hit harder in practice in preparation for the game. That, in turn, made things easier for them once the real thing was underway in Morgantown.

“Based on how we went through this whole week of practice, me and Jaylen, we made sure to practice like it was a game. Every time we get the opportunity to make a game-like rep, we make sure to do that,” Winston said. “And if you do that all week, it comes out in the game as second nature if you’ve been doing this all week.”