Iowa tested Penn State to final play

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Most college football teams with designs on a championship need to survive at least one game when the outcome is uncertain until the final whistle.

No. 4 Penn State (4-0, 1-0 Big Ten) needed every second to get past Iowa ( 3-1, 0-1) on Saturday, despite a box score that suggested the Nittany Lions dominated the Hawkeyes. Penn State outgained Iowa 579-273. It had 29 first downs to 11 for the Hawkeyes and held the ball for nearly 40 minutes.

Yet it took a touchdown pass from Trace McSorley to Juwan Johnson on fourth down as time expired for the Nittany Lions to win 21-19.

“I told the guys in the locker room, ‘ If you look at any really good season, there’s always one game where the team has to gut it out and find a way to win,’ and we were able to do that,” Penn State coach James Franklin said.

One positive for the Nittany Lions is they were able to move the ball at will at times against a good defense in their first road test. Penn State put itself in serious danger of being upset because it couldn’t put the ball in the end zone enough.

Saquon Barkley was brilliant, with a career-high 211 yards on 28 carries and 12 catches for 94 yards. But the Nittany Lions settled for four field- goal attempts, hitting two short ones, missing one and having another blocked late in the fourth quarter.

“I thought we were able to move the ball, we just weren’t finishing drives,” McSorley said. “We knew we just had to start finishing. That was kind of the (phrase) that was being thrown out a lot: We’ve got to finish, we’ve got to finish, we’ve got to finish.”

Much like last season, when Penn State used a bevy of second-half comebacks to win the Big Ten after a 2-2 start, the Nittany Lions came through when it mattered.