Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1041428
seven games since the start of the 2016 season. In five of those games, they held a fourth-quarter lead, only to see their opponent rally at the end. Against Southern Cal in the 2017 Rose Bowl, they were up by two touchdowns before Sam Darnold led the Trojans to 17 unanswered points in a 52-49 win. Last year at Ohio State, they were ahead by 15 points with just over 11 minutes to go but couldn't hold onto their lead, as a blocked punt triggered a late scoring binge that gave the host Buckeyes a 39- 38 victory. A week later at Michigan State, the Lions were up by three points going into the fourth quarter but surren- dered a pair of field goals to Matt Cogh- lin, including a 34-yarder on the last play of the game to give the Spartans a 27-24 win. And then came this year's back-to-back heartbreakers against those same two Big Ten opponents, with both games taking place at Beaver Sta- dium. The Ohio State loss was at least partly due to fatigue, coach James Franklin said. The Buckeyes aggressively took advantage of bubble screens and dump- offs in the passing game, and one of the factors that played into their success with those calls was that Penn State's defense was simply too gassed to stop them at that point in the game. "We played our first-teamers at a much higher rep count than we have the previous games," Franklin said. "I think that put us in the position that we were in [to be ahead at that point], but I also think that we ran out of gas a little bit in the fourth quarter. "I think, obviously, we're always going to be working to get better on funda- mentals and techniques. They've got great players and they've got great depth and have had that for a number of years. And I do think that come the fourth quarter, we had guys play a lot more reps than they've ever played, and we started to wear down and that showed." The participation stats from the game show a vast drop-off between Penn State's starters and backups, with only 19 defenders seeing action against the Buckeyes. Safeties Nick Scott and Gar- rett Taylor and outside linebacker Cam Brown were on the field for all 78 of Ohio State's offensive snaps. Nine other play- ers were on the field for 60 or more snaps. With its starters on the field for much of the evening, Penn State did a very effective job of keeping the Buckeyes' high-scoring offense on its heels. Dur- ing the first 52 minutes of the game, the Lions held Ohio State to only 14