Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1472993
TOP FIVE INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M A U G U S T 2 0 2 2 10 9 1. KJ Hamler vs. Ohio State, 2018 Penn State fans will long remember Hamler taking a third-down slant 93 yards for a touchdown against the Buckeyes. It remains the second-longest scoring pass in school history. The Lions ended up losing to the visitors 27-26, but Hamler had a fantastic night, finishing with 4 catches for 138 yards and adding 57 yards in kick and punt returns. 2. Journey Brown vs. Memphis, 2019 Brown was the offensive MVP of the Cotton Bowl, and with good reason. He was the star when the Lions had the ball, gashing Memphis for 202 yards, including touchdown runs of 32 and 56 yards in a 53-39 victory. Brown aver- aged 7.6 yards per carry against a Tigers defense that had no answers for Penn State's ground game. 3. Yetur Gross-Matos vs. Indiana, 2018 The Nittany Lions needed all the defensive stops they could muster in a back-and-forth game against the Hoosiers. Gross-Matos delivered. He re- corded 10 tackles, becoming the first Nittany Lion defensive lineman to reach double digits in a game since Austin Johnson had 10 stops against Northwest- ern in 2015. Two of Gross-Matos' tackles were sacks in PSU's 33-28 victory in Bloomington. 4. Sean Clifford vs. Auburn, 2021 Penn State needed an excellent performance from Clifford to hold off the Tigers at Beaver Stadium, and the senior delivered. Clifford hit 28 of 32 passes, compiling an 87.5 percent completion rate, the best by a PSU passer in 25 years. He finished with 280 passing yards and 2 touchdowns while gain- ing another 20 yards on the ground in PSU's 28-20 victory. 5. Tariq Castro-Fields vs. Michigan, 2019 With Penn State ahead by a couple of touchdowns early in its matchup against visiting Michigan, Castro-Fields picked off a Shea Patterson pass in the second quarter to set up a Clifford-to-Hamler scoring strike and a 21-0 lead. PSU held off Michigan's second-half rally for a 28-21 win. Castro-Fields played a key role, finishing the night with a career-high 8 tackles. Slowed by injuries during his career, cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields still won All-Big Ten honors each of his last three seasons at Penn State. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL