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O c T O B E R 2 8 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . c O M 3 • Penn State suffered a costly special teams gaffe of its own – a blocked punt in the fourth quarter that set up an Ohio State touchdown. The block followed a Shareef Miller fumble recovery that had given Penn State possession in Buckeye territory. The resulting momentum swing is likely to be remembered as a cringe-inducing moment in which the Lions squandered a chance to put the game away. In that respect, this game was reminiscent of the Rose Bowl. Penn State appeared to be one or two plays away from winning but le> the door ajar just wide enough for Ohio State to shove it open. "The margin of error is very, very small when you play these types of games," Franklin said. "I thought the blocked punt was a huge play in the game. It re- ally just came down to, as the game went on, our splits got tighter and tighter, and it created a short edge. Part of the pro- tection is your spacing. We got too tight, and they run well enough to take advan- tage of it. That was big." • The game took a toll on Penn State's health. Defensive end Ryan Buchholz went down on Ohio State's first offensive play, while offensive tackle Ryan Bates got rolled up from behind by Barkley on a short run. LOOKING AHEAD The playoff dream isn't over, exactly; three one-loss teams made the field a year ago. But until Ohio State jumped the line last season, it was assumed that the path to the playoff went through the Big Ten Championship Game. To get back to Indianapolis, Penn State is going to need a lot of help from the likes of Iowa, Michigan State, Illinois and Michigan, opponents against which Ohio State un- doubtedly will be heavily favored. All Penn State can do is to refocus on its remaining opponents, the first of which is Michigan State. The Nittany Lions have shown a lot of resilience since turn- ing things around in 2016. The last time they dropped two in a row was in 2015, when they followed a winless November with a loss to Georgia in the TaxSlayer Bowl. A year ago, they bounced back smartly from early losses to Pitt and Michigan, winning nine consecutive games following the blowout in Ann Arbor. They don't figure to tumble very far in the polls given that they nearly pulled off a victory in one of the nation's more hos- tile venues, so anything is possible. But they're going to have to hope for some attrition at the top of the rankings, and they're going to need to keep winning – an undertaking that will continue next weekend in East Lansing against a Spar- tan team that fell to Northwestern in triple overtime on Saturday. "I'm very disappointed for the guys in the locker room, but we have a lot of football ahead of us," Franklin said. "As we saw with how everything played out last year, this is a crazy game with a lot of different storylines."

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