Penn State Football: Nittany Lions Will Expected Loss Into Heartbreaker

There was no reason to expect Penn State to win on Saturday. But reason so rarely applies in college football.

The sport has become the poster child for “never saying never,” a constant example of why you never leave the game early even if your eyes tell your otherwise.

Because you just never know.

So as Penn State took the field on Saturday night, there was cautious optimism that maybe something good could happen. It’s a kind of mental drunkenness that sees you abandon logic and replace it with hope. Even with that mental buzz, there is a understanding shared by all that Penn State would need to play a perfect game to keep things within reach.

And Penn State didn’t play a perfect game. Not even close.

For nearly four quarters — yes the entire game — fans faced the reality that a defensive stop would mean a sputtering offense would take the field. An offense that would accumulate 67 yards in the first half and only five yards on the ground.

If anything, Ohio State’s offense would simply wear down a defense that rarely got a few minutes rest. Mike Hull and his teammates were holding back a river with cardboard squares. The leaks would eventually mount and the resistance would fall. There would be no reinforcements.

Even luck and good fortune seemed to be against Penn State. A reviewed interception wasn’t overturned due to technical issues. A field goal that happened well after the play clock expired was never wiped from the board, the violation unnoticed. Senior running back Zach Zwinak was injured on the opening play of the game, taking the energy out of Beaver Stadium before a meaningful snap had been taken.

So as Penn State left the field down 17-0 there was little reason to expect anything to change. Points seemed nearly impossible to come by for a Nittany Lion offense that hadn’t converted a third down through 30 minutes of play.

Conversely, Ohio State’s offense was manned by talent most often found in the SEC than the ever slow and limping Big Ten. Penn State fielded a depleted roster that was weakest in the areas Ohio State could counter with its strongest assets. Fans stayed because tickets were the most expensive of any game in the nation on Saturday. 

And they stayed because you just never know.

Maybe it was nature balancing things out, maybe it was just a stroke of luck going Penn State’s way.

On the field, it was a 40-yard interception return by Anthony Zettel.

Reason be dammed.

Penn State’s defense would play a second half that would have given any team in the nation fits. Mike Hull played like a man possessed, 19 tackles and an interception of his own later in the half giving Penn State life. An Ohio State team that struggled with the crowd noise suddenly remembered that its quarterback was a true freshman playing on the road.

In a world of semi-professional athletes sometimes only months removed from senior proms, doubt and an inkling of fear doesn’t have to percolate far through the brain to reach the forefront of the mind. And where doubt creeps in, opportunity begins to grow where it had so seldom been found.

The Nittany Lions weren’t perfect on Saturday, but despite the odds, despite the unlikely and unreasonable result, they found a way to survive. An analogy of the program’s past several years melted down into 30 minutes of unreasonable football.

Quarterback Christian Hackenberg would find himself in the most crucial of moments. An 8 play, 45 yard drive would end in a leaping and acrobatic touchdown catch by Saeed Blacknall that would cut the lead to a field goal. Suddenly the unreasonable was completely possible.

A 19 play, 77 yard drive would end with a game tying field goal in the final seconds of regulation. It would also turn the possible into very likely.

Forty-eight players would see the field for Penn State. Fifty-four for Ohio State. By the time the first overtime period began there were no more rankings or unreasonable expectations. Just 102 athletes scrapping and clawing for a victory that had just so recently felt like a predetermined fate.

Penn State would fall in the second overtime because someone had to lose. The nature of the loss was more the final bit of the damn breaking as nothing remained in the tank. A crowd that had exploded so many times over the previous four hours would fall silent before standing to applaud a team that never had a chance for making its own chances.

James Franklin would take the podium with red eyes, emotions raw and words carefully chosen. As his quarterback limped off the field on the game’s final play it was a symbolic moment that there was simply nothing left.

“There are no moral victories at Penn State and there never will be,” Franklin said before pausing. “But I’m proud of how they fought and stood together. With that, we’ll get where we want to go. We’ll get where the fans want us to go.”

“We’ll go where everyone needs us to go. That’s the most important thing.”