It was a beautiful, crisp, sunny, autumn afternoon just made for football. But all the Penn State fans could do Saturday was wander around the glass and concrete of downtown Minneapolis or hike three miles across the Mississippi River to stroll around the Minnesota campus, sandwiched between busy city streets.
Since 1982 the Golden Gophers have played their home games inside the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome, which they have to share with the Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Twins, each of whom have priority. And on the last weekend of baseball’s regular season, the Twins bumped the Minnesota-Penn State football game out of its planned 11 a.m. time slot, forcing the unbeaten Gophers and Lions to play a night contest. (Of course that’s not as bad as last year, when the Gophers game against Michigan had to be played on Friday night in the dome.)
Ironically, the Twins and Indians went into extra innings Saturday, and their game had to be called after 11 innings with the score tied, 5-5, because the stadium personnel needed four hours to reconfigure it from baseball to football.
So at least the Blue and White fans could smirk, as they dragged themselves inside, where they were drowned in a sea of Maroon & Gold, while watching their Nittany Lions struggle to keep their heads above water against Coach Glen Mason’s 18th-ranked squad.
The Penn State gridders held the nation’s third-best offense to its lowest point total in two years—28 points below its season average of 44.2 points per game and 142 yards below its average of 542.8 yards of total offense on the artificial turf under the big pressurized bubble. However, the Nittany Lion offense that has struggled mightily on the road for the last two years, could muster only one touchdown, and the Lions lost, 16-7, to the home team. Being held to only 21 net yards rushing and just two trips into the Red Zone, Penn State lost its eighth consecutive road game and slipped into the Big Ten cellar with a 0-2 conference slate to go with its 2-3 overall record.
The team that led the Big Ten in rushing offense and was second in total offense skillfully executed its strategy from the opening coin toss. Winning the flip, the Gophers deferred, knowing that they could then opt to receive the kickoff in the second half. But those rascally rodents wanted the ball to start both halves, so they hospitably dug a hole for the visiting Lions by opening the contest with an onside kick – just as they had done last year – and recovering the ball on Penn State’s 45-yard line. Immediately they had excellent field position, starting their first scrimmage play in Penn State territory.
Those wily critters gave the ball to the Big Ten’s leading rusher, Laurence Maroney, who started around right end. But he back-flipped the pigskin to wide receiver Jakari Wallace coming the other direction, and the speedy Gopher raced 15 yards around left end on the reverse. With their backs immediately against the wall, State’s defense refused to let the Gophers into the end zone and forced them to settle for a 23-yard field goal by Rhys Lloyd.
The 3-0 hole soon deepened to 10-0, when the Lion defense suffered its first lapse, allowing Maroney to run around left end for 64 yards on a 3rd-and-11 play. It was the longest gain allowed by Penn State this season and the longest non-scoring play of the year for Minnesota, as strong safety Calvin Lowry made a diving shoestring tackle to stop the fleet-footed sophomore on the PS-23. But this merely delayed by six plays Minnesota’s first touchdown, which Maroney got on a fourth-down one-yard plunge up the middle.
Penn State had a game plan to try to run against the Gophers and control the ball, thus keeping their high-powered offense off the field as much as possible. But Minnesota quickly parried this plan by putting eight men in the box and shutting off all running lanes, while daring the visitors to pass the ball.
“When the opponent doesn’t respect your wideouts, its very tough to run the ball,” a dejected Coach Paterno told the media after the game.
Mustering only three yards on seven running plays in the first quarter, State was forced to take to the air, despite the sore shoulder being nursed by quarterback Zack Mills, who had been knocked out of last week’s game in Wisconsin on the second play.
Mills completed all four of his first quarter passes, but could not get the Lions out of their own territory until the middle of the second quarter, when tailback Tony Hunt caught a tipped pass along the right sideline for a 20-yard gain to the MN-47. But three Lion possessions in the second frame fizzled inside the MN-43, and Robbie Gould pulled a 51-yard field goal attempt wide left on State’s only scoring threat, just one minute before halftime.
Conversely, the Lions played sound defense in the second quarter, holding the Gophers to 65 yards to keep their first-half total 38 yards under their previous season low and their halftime score 10 points below their previous nadir.
The second lapse by the Penn State defense came on the first play of the second half, when Maroney was allowed to gallop 24 yards around right end and set a Minnesota career record with six consecutive 100-yard rushing performances. Maroney’s running mate, Marion Barber III, climaxed the final Gopher scoring drive 10 plays later with a 19-yard burst through the left side, breaking four tackles before being bulldogged down at the goal line by freshman Lion linebacker Dan Connor. However, Barber, Minnesota’s third leading all-time touchdown scorer, managed to reach the ball just inside the pylon for his 31st TD—just three less than his All-American father, Marion Barber (1977-80).
The visitors finally got on the scoreboard late in the third quarter, when Mills threw eight consecutive passes, completing seven of them for 58 yards. The penultimate completion was to Tony Hunt who went across the middle, made the grab, spun out of a tackle and fought through two more to the six-yard line. Then came a strike to tight end Isaac Smolko in the right corner of the end zone. It was the only catch of the night for Smolko, who spent most of his time blocking Minnesota’s hard-rushing defensive linemen.
This was only the second touchdown the Lions have scored on the road this fall, while losing three games by a combined score of 53-17. None of the Lions points have come in the first half of those road games. The 10 points State has scored in the last two games marks its lowest two-game total since Pitt and Ohio State held the Lions to six in consecutive contests in 2000.
After the game Paterno again lamented the performance of his wide receivers, who dropped several passes in the Metrodome, while versatile wide receiver-quarterback Michael Robinson, injured last week in Wisconsin, stood on the sideline in street clothes.
Fourteen of Penn State’s 24 receptions Saturday were caught by running backs and three by tight ends. Of the seven passes caught by wideouts, six were hauled in by true freshman Mark Rubin, who made the first appearance of his career in the second half of last week’s contest in Wisconsin and made his first start at Minnesota.
Freshman walk-on Brendan Perretta also played at wide receiver, as State tried different combinations. And true freshman running back Matt Hahn made his debut, catching two passes in relief of starting fullback Paul Jefferson. Jefferson gained 24 yards on five receptions, several of which were screens. The leading receiver was sophomore tailback Tony Hunt, who snared seven aerials for 110 yards, marking the first time a Penn State running back has had more than 100 yards receiving since Jon Williams did it at Miami in 1981.
The challenge only gets tougher for the Lions, as undefeated and ninth-ranked Purdue brings the nation’s second-best offense to Beaver Stadium for a 4:30 p.m. kickoff Saturday. Their Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback Kyle Orton, who ranks second in the country in total offense, has passed for 17 touchdowns with no interceptions through five games.
For the glory,
