A Win Over Wisconsin Was the Shot in the Arm That All of Penn State Needed

Jaquan Brisker mandated the kind of victory for The Pennsylvania State University that Eric Barron could not.

And the resulting “W” over the Dubs was the shot in the arm that Penn State needed. All of Penn State.

One, two, three times Brisker was down on Saturday in Camp Randall. But not out. He came back again…and again…and again. The senior safety’s return the third time was the charm, a desperately-needed final booster to a Nittany Lion D that held fast through 95 plays and 30 Wisconsin first downs as the Badgers ran the ball more times (58) than Penn State had plays (51).

Brisker’s pick at the PSU 2 with 2:24 to play came with Penn State holding a precarious 16-10 lead and staved off Wisconsin’s penultimate drive. Then his community college teammate and fellow safety Ji’Ayir Brown turned the same trick.

As time and the Badgers expired, Brown intercepted the final pass of the day from Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz (often looking more like Ethel, Lucy’s neighbor of the same surname). The interception bookended a failed Penn State drive — PSU’s alarming seventh three-and-out of the day — and seven more Wisconsin plays.

It closed the chapter on what was the third-biggest victory in the 89-game James Franklin Era, after the Ohio State and Wisconsin wins of 2016.

You gotta say this: Penn State’s defense, playing fast and furious all day under Brent Pry’s deft and aggressive hand — didn’t lack a wanna win mentality.

(Memo to Heidi Erb, Franklin’s executive assistant: FedEx a box of cigars to Mark Duda, head coach at Lackawanna Community College. And please bill CJF.)

A WHITEOUT BEFORE THE WHITEOUT

So, to hell with the Zooms and the masks and the 4-5 seasons.

And same goes for Franklin’s astonishingly poor regular-season road record of 1-8 against Top 25 teams at Penn State. (Until Saturday, the sole such win was the 17-12 victory over No. 17 Iowa in Kinnick in 2019.)

The Nittany Lions’ 16-10 victory at Wisconsin was the kind of feel-good story that will last not days or weeks, but likely years. Or, at least, until the outcome of the Whiteout vs. Auburn is decided in about 300 hours.

Penn State’s victory erased the bad taste an anomalied asterisk of a 4-5 season and will most assuredly buoy a campus and a community mired in the muck of the controversy of a school barren of a mandated vax policy that’s in place at most of the Big Ten and at hundreds of colleges across America.

The victory set off an explosion in downtown State College, the cheers roaring from the new deck at Bill Pickle’s to the standard-issue overflow crowd at Champs to the mega-high rises holding hundreds of house parties.

It will spawn what Kirk Herbstreit told Big Cat last week on the “Pardon My Take” podcast:

“In Columbus and Madison and State College,” enthused Herbie, “their lives are predicated the next week on what happened in the game last week.” 

So, the win over Wisconsin will reenergize a student body anxious for normalcy and continue to reverberate along on the Mall and likely in the halls of Old Main come Tuesday morning, when classes resume after a long Labor Day weekend. (To say nothing of the 700,000-plus PSU alumni. The only Clifford happier than Sean was Paul.)

HOME SWEET HOME

It will no doubt create a wave of Lion hype that could turn into a tsunami now that Penn State has four consecutive home games coming up — Ball State, Auburn, Villanova and Indiana.

It is a homestand that will feature four games in 22 days. And, quite possibly, four weeks of 1-0, 1-0, 1-0 and 1-0.

A five and oh start is not just suddenly, but realistically, possible. 

On Saturday, Ball State did not live up to its veteran squad-laden hype; it was tied 7-7 with Western Illinois at the half, before pulling away to win 31-21 against a team that was 1-5 in 2020. Early scouting reports from a source down in ’Bama say the Auburn Tigers, while not made of paper, are not rocks, either. The best Villanova player in Beaver Stadium on Sept. 25 will be Brian Westbrook (Class of ’02); but he’s now 42 and won’t be suiting up. Instead, he’ll will be watching from the stands with PSU alum Mike Missanelli, the Philly sports talk radio star.

And then there’s Indiana.

The only semblance of any Nittany Lions’ 2020 hindsight has been focused on Indiana for months, seeking pylon penance even before Michael Penix Jr. threw three picks — two of them for TDs — against Iowa on Saturday, in a 34-6 loss that exposed the Hoosiers.

But, first things first.

SOME POINTS TO MAKE

On Saturday, Brisker didn’t win the game by himself. The Nittany Lions had a couple of heroes – the continuing deep ball combo of Cliff-to-Jahan Dotson, the edge skills of Temple transfer Arnold Ebiketie, the late-game running pain inflicted by the once again-able Noah Cain, the team-high 11 tackles by Ellis Brooks and the nine by LBU brother Brandon Smith.

Their prowess and the Penn State victory are what fans will remember — not the fumble by Mertz (Graham, not Ethel) on first-and-goal at the PSU 1 with 2:38 to play. Nor the Badgers’ woeful 1-of-4 performance in the red zone.

They’ll recall the 254 yards of offense and drives of 86, 76, 61 and 68 yards compiled by the Penn State offense in the second half.

Not the paltry 16 points scored they scored, the fewest by a Mike Yurcich-coordinated offense in 31 games (since Kansas State 31, Oklahoma State 12, on Oct. 13, 2018) or the second-fewest such points in 75 games (dating back to Texas 28, Oklahoma State 7, on Nov. 15, 2014).

As it should be.

For now, and maybe for quite awhile, the valley is happy. Again.