Sunday Column: Timely If Not Tidy, Lions Dig Themselves Out of Another Hole to Bury Gophers

It ended in, at least in the stat sheet, what appeared to be an obvious way — yet another pass completion from Drew Allar to Tyler Warren. A simple pitch and catch.

But nothing, not even that fourth-down toss, was simple in Penn State’s 26-25 win at Minnesota. With this town and this team, nothing ever is.

Saturday marked just the 17^th time in 32 Big Ten seasons that the Nittany Lions met the Golden Gophers on a football field, and though the Lions had won 10 of the previous 16 meetings, there had been a disproportionate number of concerning Gopher bites they had sustained from a team that hasn’t made much noise in the conference since the 1960s.

There was Dan Nystrom in 1999. Laurence Maroney and Marion Barber during the forgotten seasons of 2003 and 2004. Tanner Morgan and Rashod Bateman in 2019. Even the 2016 Big Ten title team needed overtime to topple a so-so Minnesota squad.

And then there was Saturday. Penn State was eight quarters away from its first playoff berth and, for much of the first three quarters, played instead like it had a whole stack of free passes (it didn’t). The defense missed tackles and couldn’t get a hand on quarterback Max Brosmer. The offense couldn’t sustain a running attack or convert a third-and-short. We won’t, uh, talk about the special teams. The Gophers, who had essentially nothing but playing spoiler to concern themselves with this game, looked hungry and more engaged than the Lions did, but simply didn’t have the talent to outlast them.

At least, that’s what you told yourself as the third quarter bled into the fourth, as the Nittany Lions took the ball back after another gift turnover from Brosmer and seemed poised to pull away. But as the seconds ticked off the clock, you realized that these Nittany Lions weren’t playing against these Gophers, or even the ghosts of Gophers past, but rather their own sloppy alter egos that had seemed to have taken a week off in West Lafayette but made their presence felt again Saturday. You came to realize that it was less Penn State versus Minnesota than Penn State’s Grit and Desire versus Penn State’s Own Shortcomings, and that wound up being just as entertaining as any game on a college football Saturday filled with exciting finishes.

You exalted in Luke Reynolds’ big run on the fake punt not just because it was great execution of a great call but because that call was such a contrast to the lack of, ahem, huevos James Franklin had shown on fourth downs earlier in the game, because Reynolds, even though Riley Thompson was likely more at fault, had been the guy not-quite-blocking linebacker Derik LeCaptain on the blocked punt earlier in the game.

You nodded your head approvingly at Allar picking up a big first down on the final drive with his legs while at the same time acknowledging, or maybe willingly ignoring, that he did so because he still, in the 11^th game of the season, rightly doesn’t trust his receivers to make a timely play downfield.

In the end, of course, grit won out, and Penn State lived to fight another day (perhaps a snowy day in Beaver Stadium in late December?) despite making enough mistakes to lose to a lot of the opponents it faced this season. The Lions won because they allowed just six points in the second half. Because their offense, once again without Anthony Donkoh on the right side and with Allar apparently losing his mind at one point, made enough plays despite a wildly bad performance (1 of 11) on third down. Because the special teams came up with the right call at the right time after basically handing the Gophers 10 points with two horrible mistakes in the first half. Because Franklin, perhaps knowing he might never get another chance like the one he has in front of him, coached to win instead of not to lose.

Better Penn State teams than the 2024 version have lost to worse Minnesota squads. It was a game that the Lions expected to be tricky and then made even trickier themselves. But although nothing was simple, including the stakes, they simply won, which is all they will remember from their latest trip to the Midwest.