Sunday Column: Fourth-Quarter Flurry Puts Nittany Lions and Buckeyes Back In All-Too-Familiar Roles

The problem with fighting the champ, the heaviest-hitting of the heavyweights, is that you’re forever one punch away from disaster.

You could be ahead on points, you could have cut him, you could be executing your strategy to perfection, and you could be frustrating him, even as the later rounds tick by and the swell of the crowd grows around you.

But if he lands just one big swing, the whole fight changes.

Such it was for Penn State on Saturday against the Big Ten’s version of Ali’s brain inserted in a young Tyson’s body, better known as the Ohio State Buckeyes. For three full quarters, the Nittany Lions scooted carefully around the ring, working the Buckeyes’ body, landing a few hearty blows to the chin and cheeks and generally staying out of trouble. And when Kaytron Allen tumbled into the end zone with 9:26 to play to cap a scoring drive with enough twists and turns to have been scripted by Christopher Nolan and give his team a 21-16 lead, Penn State fans allowed themselves to think that maybe, just maybe, this was their day.

And then – Tap! Tap! Tap! — a quick combo of Marvin Harrison, Jr. for 21 yards, Emeka Egbuka for 13 and TreVeyon Henderson for 41 and a score. Penn State’s legs got wobbly.

Boom! – J.T. Tuimoloau stripped Sean Clifford, and C.J. Stroud hit Cade Stover for another score, and the Nittany Lions hit the canvas and had to stand up with help from the rope.

Penn State came up swinging, and landed a field goal to make it a one-score game with six minutes left, but then the left hook — a 75-yard touchdown drive — followed by a right cross — Tuimoloau’s pick 6 — and the bell sounded. Twenty-eight Buckeye points in just about half a quarter, all but erasing more than two hours of hard work by the home team prior to that.

That is what the Buckeyes do, and that is why they are the No. 2 team in the nation despite often showing the same penchant for sleepwalking through large sections of the game. They know they only need a couple of punches to end most fights, even in raucous enemy territory, so they drift off from time to time, lose focus, give opponents fleeting and often false hope. But usually, when the fourth quarter arrives, they’re the ones doing the hitting, no matter how many punches they might have taken to that point.

For Penn State, it was an encouraging and a discouraging afternoon. Two weeks earlier in Ann Arbor, the Nittany Lions had been out-played, out-hustled and out-coached by another top-five Big Ten foe in a 41-17 loss to Michigan. After a get-right White Out victory over Minnesota, Penn State’s coaches brought solid game plans to the field Saturday. And, when he wasn’t turning the ball over like he was handing out Halloween candy, Sean Clifford made plenty of plays, getting help from Allen, Parker Washington, and even from his offensive line (well, the guys not blocking Tuimoloau, anyway).

The discouraging part was that, this week, Penn State was simply outmatched. Again. For a program that’s been toiling in Ohio State’s sizable shadow and trying to mold itself in that program’s image — fill the rosters with big-play defensive linemen and offensive skill players and let the big punches carry the day — it was a sobering reminder that the champ is the champ until you take the belt from him, and that while Penn State has an Abdul Carter or Kaytron Allen breaking out here or there, the Buckeyes have future pros at almost every position, and nearly any one of them is ready to change the game on a single snap.

When the Nittany Lions got housed in Ann Arbor, no one would argue that Penn State had produced its best effort. Against the Buckeyes, the effort wasn’t the issue. Nor was the preparation. But the result, even if it didn’t look as though it were going to be for three quarters, was essentially the same. Had the game progressed through the fourth the same way the first three quarters had gone — a couple more lead changes, big plays on both sides — and the Nittany Lions had lost, say, 31-24, Nittany Nation would have been heartbroken but at least walked away knowing that if this play or that play had gone slightly differently, the result might have been different, too.

Instead, the champ woke up and sent Penn State tumbling to the canvas for the 10th time in the teams’ last 11 meetings. Will Penn State be a better fighter for having gone through this one? Probably, but its chance to play for much more than pride this season evaporated each time a Buckeye crossed the goal line in the fourth quarter, and now they will have another year to ponder the gap between themselves and the hard-hitting heavyweights in the next state over, and just what the hell they’re going to do when they see them in the ring next year.