Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
No. 4 Buckeyes rally for victory
Two late TD passes get better of Nittany Lions
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The largest crowd in Beaver Stadium history, a sparkling whiteout, was rocking. Penn State and its dynamic and gritty quarterback Trace McSorley had Ohio State reeling midway through the fourth quarter.
And then just like that, everything changed, and for the second year in a row the Buckeyes swiped victory away from the Nittany Lions in another wild game between the Big Ten powerhouses.
Dwayne Haskins threw two touchdown passes in the final seven minutes as No. 4 Ohio State wiped out a 12-point deficit to beat No. 9 Penn State 27-26 Saturday night.
“That sideline was not giving up,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said. “There was a time, now, you looked up and saw those white pompoms and that whole deal and thought that was over.”
McSorley set a school record with 461 yards of total offense, including a career-high 175 rushing and threw two touchdown passes, and the Nittany Lions (4-1, 1-1) went up 26-14 with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter on a 1-yard TD plunge by Miles Sanders.
The record-breaking crowd of 110,889 was singing along to “Sweet Caroline” and “Livin’ on a Prayer.” It looked like the Nittany Lions would get another home victory against the Buckeyes (5-0, 2-0) like they did in 2016.
Instead, for the second straight season, Ohio State made a fourth-quarter rally from a double-digit deficit. As far as Penn State coach James Franklin has taken the Nittany Lions in fourplus seasons, he said they can’t quite consider themselves an elite program until they start closing out games like this. And he promised to change it.
“It’s not going to happen again,” Franklin said. “I’m not a negative guy. But I am going to make sure that as our program, that we do everything right and we grow every single day and we challenge ourselves every single day and we get uncomfortable, we get comfortable being uncomfortable and break out to that next phase.”