Penn State football’s first College Football Playoff game in program history got off to an inauspicious beginning.

After SMU won the toss and elected to defer, the Penn State offense took the field at its own 30-yard line after a return from Nick Singleton. Three plays and 7 yards of offense later, Riley Thompson took the field to punt the ball to the Mustangs.

While Penn State’s first possession was arguably its worst of the game, SMU’s first drive was arguably its best. The Mustangs marched down the field with their typical fast pace and were finally stopped at the Penn State 19-yard line on a failed fourth-down conversion.

The offense continued to sputter, and a pick-six from the defense was the first quarter’s only score. The defense struck again early in the second quarter as Tony Rojas cashed in on another interception from SMU’s Kevin Jennings and took it 60 yards to the end zone.

With five minutes left in the first half, though, the run game finally broke through. After averaging just 2.9 yards per carry on the ground in the first quarter, Kaytron Allen kickstarted the run game with a 25-yard score as the Nittany Lions took a 21-0 lead.

“It took us a little time to get going on offense and specifically in the run game but then we got it going,” James Franklin said postgame. “[Singleton and Allen] are fast, they’re big, and they’re violent.”

Franklin said he saw the violent style of Singleton specifically on the next Penn State drive after the Allen score. Singleton accounted for 27 yards on a drive that started from the SMU 38-yard line and finished with a strong fight for the end zone from the 1-yard line.

Despite only putting up two offensive touchdowns at the end of the second quarter, the Nittany Lions took a 28-0 lead into halftime. The yards on the ground continued to mount in the second half as Penn State held the ball and maintained its lead while throwing just four passes in the second half.

While the running backs rushed for 189 yards during the 38-10 beatdown of the Mustangs, players and coaches alike attributed the success to the wall that the offensive line put up all game long.

“It starts up front,” offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki said. “These games in this type of weather at this time of year, you need to win up front. That’s how we’re going to advance.”

Singleton led the running back room with 14 carries for 90 yards and a touchdown on Saturday while Allen finished second with 70 yards on 11 carries and two touchdowns. Both backs averaged 6.4 yards per carry, something that they’d done together just twice this season.

The first time the pair had at least 6.4 yards per carry was the second game of the season against Bowling Green, while the second time was two weeks ago in the Big Ten Championship.

The numbers come as Nick Singleton said he’s back to full strength before the Big Ten Championship and Allen continues to produce consistent numbers out of the Nittany Lion backfield. On a day when Drew Allar went 13-for-22 with 127 yards and no scores, the running backs stepped up. Being able to lean on other facets of the game can be critical, and Allar said the backs, and the offense as a whole, are crescendoing at the right time.

“Me and Kaytron, we always say we’re the best backfield in the nation, and we stand on that,” Singleton said. “But we have to keep going with it and keep practicing hard. Take it one game at a time and keep finding the little stuff we can get better at.”