Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1480138
O C T O B E R 2 0 2 2 19 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M FIVE YEARS AGO, 2017 The thrill of victory? The agony of defeat? Penn State got an intense taste of both in a seven-day span in October 2017. On a White Out night in Beaver Sta- dium, the second-ranked Nittany Lions lit up No. 19 Michigan 42-13. The Wol- verines had been allowing an FBS-low 223.8 yards per game, but Saquon Bark- ley dashed 69 yards for a touchdown on the game's second play, and he scored again just four minutes later, staking PSU to a 14-0 lead. Michigan fought back with two sec- ond-quarter scores, but the Lions re- sponded with four unanswered touch- downs, three on rushes by quarterback Trace McSorley, to finish off the rout. "Sometimes it's going to be like a heavyweight fight," said Barkley, who finished with 176 all-purpose yards and 3 scores. "They're going to get some, and we get ours. When you get your op- portunity, you have to score. You've got to take the 4 [yard gains], take the 2, you might even take a negative 2, but when you get a chance to split it, you've got to find a way into the end zone. … We were able to do it, and I was able to find a way." The Lions got off to another hot start a week later at Ohio State, but Urban Meyer's sixth-ranked team proved more resilient than the Wolverines. PSU led by 15 early in the fourth quarter in Co- lumbus but gave up two J.T. Barrett touchdown passes in the final 4:20 to lose 39-38. Although the Lions went on to win their final four games of the season, the blown lead in the Horseshoe remains one of the most haunting missed op- portunities in recent Penn State history. 10 YEARS AGO, 2012 After turning its season around in mid-September, Penn State hit the gas in October, outlasting Northwestern 39-28 on homecoming weekend and thrashing Iowa 38-14 at Kinnick Sta- dium. The victory over the Hawkeyes was particularly satisfying given the dif- ficulties that Penn State experienced against Kirk Ferentz's squad throughout the waning years of the Paterno era. The Lions had won just three of the previous 12 matchups between the two teams and hadn't won in Iowa City since 1999. Matt McGloin threw for 289 yards and 2 touchdowns, and Bill Belton ran for 103 yards and 3 scores, while the PSU defense held Iowa to a meager 209 yards of total offense en route to the team's fifth consecutive victory. 25 YEARS AGO, 1997 Penn State welcomed Ohio State to Beaver Stadium in October, and while the Buckeyes have often been a stum- bling block, the Lions prevailed 31-27 thanks to a 211-yard outburst by tail- back Curtis Enis, who declared after the game, "I was like Amtrak. I was only going one way." Penn State's toughest game of the month was the one it played against Minnesota a week later. Trailing the un- ranked Gophers 15-3 in the fourth quar- ter, the Nittany Lions got a gift in the form of a third-down pass interference penalty that set up an Enis touchdown run to make it a one-score game. With just under four minutes to play, Penn State defensive lineman Chris Snyder recovered a fumbled pitch, giv- ing the Lions possession at Minnesota's 10-yard line. They needed just one play to score the winning touchdown. Enis, who finished with 112 yards, did the honors, providing the decisive points in a 16-15 victory. It was a narrow escape for a Penn State team that days earlier had as- cended to the top spot in the Associated Press poll, and it raised some red flags. When PSU returned to action two weeks later at Northwestern, it was back to No. 2. — Matt Herb This Month in Penn State Athletics History Saquon Barkley rushed for 108 yards in Penn State's 42-13 romp over Michigan in 2017. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL