Lions offense has ‘fun’ again
damage when the outcome of the game still was in doubt. He accumulated 208 yards of total offense in the first half, when the Cornhuskers managed 77.
“It was awesome,” quarterback Trace McSorley said. “You could kind of see the last couple of weeks, a little bit of frustration starting to build with him and really, with our guys up front.
“They were working hard, working hard, but our running game just wasn’t popping like we wanted it to be.”
Nebraska’s porous defensive front was a good tonic for that.
The prevailing sentiment is that this likely was Barkley’s final game at Beaver Stadium. He’s a junior, but is widely expected to be an early first-round choice if he declares for the NFL draft.
Barkley said “I haven’t made a decision” on whether to turn pro, and that he will sit down with family members after the season “and really think about it.”
The victory raised Penn State’s record to 9-2, 6-2 in the Big Ten Conference. The Nittany Lions will close out the regular season next Saturday atMaryland.
The victory was Penn State’s 14th in a row at Beaver Stadium, where they haven’t lost since 2015.
“That’s pretty impressive,” coach James Franklin said, noting that Penn State hadn’t put together such a streak in 31 years.
Aside from a late-game letdown — the Cornhuskers scored three touchdowns in the final 6½ minutes — the only major negative for Penn State appeared to be that senior defensive back Troy Apke of Mt. Lebanon was ejected for targeting midway through the fourth quarter and will have to sit out the first half of the Maryland game.
For much of the game, the Cornhuskers’ uniforms were the only clue that this actually was a Nebraska team, and Barkley wasn’t the only Nittany Lion to put up big numbers.
McSorley threw a touchdown pass for the 26th game in a row and finished with three. He also ran for one to raise his total for the season to 11, one shy of Michael Robinson’s school record.
He finished with 325 passing yards, the ninth time he has thrown for 300 or more at Penn State. That tied Christian Hackenberg’s school record.
Mike Gesicki, meanwhile, had four receptions for 47 yards to push his career total to a school-best 1,384.
On one drive in the second quarter, Gesicki set Penn State records for single-season (six) and career (12) touchdown receptions by a tight end and broke Ted Kwalick’s record for career yardage.
Barkley staked Penn State to an early lead on his first carry of the game, going 65 yards for a touchdown — and instantly surpassing his total from any game after Michigan Oct. 21.
That not only put the Nittany Lions in front, but delivered a major infusion of confidence to a running back and offensive line that desperately needed one.
“We weren’t really playing with confidence, playing with swagger, like we had in the past,” Barkley said. “We were having fun out there today.”