On their weekly Penn State football podcast, presented by FanDuel, host Adam Bittner welcomes Post-Gazette/Daily Collegian Nittany Lions insider Isaiah Maldonado to sort through the team's recurring issues in the wake of the loss to Ohio State.

Did James Franklin whiff harder on hiring Andy Kotelnicki as OC or Jim Knowles as DC?

On the offensive side, why is Kotelnicki so devoted to gimmicky plays without Tyler Warren still on the roster? Has Drew Allar been exonerated by the offense's continuing struggles without him? Are receivers Trebor Pena, Kyron Hudson and Devote Ross this bad? Or is the vertical passing game they're playing in just poorly conceived by their coordinator? And what can we make of Ethan Grunkemeyer's performance in this offense so far?

On the defensive side of the ball, was Knowles just too much of a philosophical shift from Tom Allen and Manny Diaz? Why haven't Dani Dennis-Sutton, Zane Durant and Zuriah Fisher had more success up front? Were they overrated? Or has Knowles misused them? And why didn't Knowles have better solutions for Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith and the Buckeyes offense he was so familiar with, having coached alongside it last season?

Our duo tackles those questions, then briefly previews this week's matchup with second-ranked Indiana at Beaver Stadium.