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closeEVANSTON, Ill. — There is a cool patience about this Penn State team, the kind of patience that allowed the Nittany Lions to shuffle and stumble through the first half of Saturday’s so-called “trap” game at Northwestern without any more than a couple of shoulder shrugs.
AP
Northwestern quarterback Mike Kafka, right, fumbles the ball during the first quarter of an NCAA college football game against Penn State's Jack Crawford in Evanston, Ill., Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009.(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
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And the three touchdowns Penn State scored in a total of three offensive plays in the fourth quarter of the 34-13 win at blustery Ryan Field showed why they can afford to be so patient.
“That whole first half, we knew it was just a matter of time before we started putting points up,” center Stefen Wisniewski said after the offense scored 24 points in the final 121/ 2 minutes.
“I wouldn’t say that we’re more of a second-half team than a first-half team,” defensive end Jerome Hayes said after the defense held the Wildcats to two third-quarter yards and no points over the final 30 minutes and three seconds. “But we know when we get in there at halftime and see what the other team is doing on the board, things kind of slow down for us. And we were able to come out in the second half and get into those guys.”
The No. 12 Nittany Lions (8-1, 4-1 Big Ten), who won their fifth straight game, were turnover-free for the third consecutive week, averaged 7.5 yards per play and were 4-of-4 in the red zone. The defense held Northwestern’s hyperactive spread offense to 4.6 yards per play and one touchdown and forced two turnovers.
But none of those numbers reflected the rhythm quarterback Mike Kafka and the Wildcats (5-4, 2-3) had early on nor Penn State’s lack of rhythm.
With short, quick tosses from Kafka to wide receivers Zeke Markshausen (nine catches, 60 yards) and Andrew Brewer (6-65), Northwestern took Penn State’s pass rushers out of the game and essentially turned hard-hitting linebackers Navorro Bowman and Sean Lee into extra cornerbacks. The Wildcats enjoyed a six-minute edge in time of possession and piled up 246 yards in the opening two quarters and led 10-3 after Kafka’s 7-yard touchdown run with 12:31 to play in the second quarter.
“I don’t think we quite realized how good they are offensively,” Penn State coach Joe Paterno said.
What finally slowed the Wildcats was the hamstring injury that put Kafka out of the game midway through the second quarter.
“The adjustment we made,” Paterno noted flatly, “is their quarterback got hurt.”
With Kafka, a savvy fifth-year senior among the conference’s leaders in total offense, on the sideline, Northwestern turned to redshirt sophomore Dan Persa, who had been used as a change-of- pace but had thrown a total of two passes this season prior to Saturday.
Both quarterbacks completed 14 passes (Kafka for 128 yards on 18 attempts, Persa for 115 yards on 23 attempts) and had 42 net yards rushing (Kafka on eight carries, Persa on 14), but the Wildcats were not the same team without their top offensive player, and the Nittany Lions, with a little extra stunting, took advantage.
“We were able to do a few different things with No. 7 in there than when Kafka was in the game,” Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said. “We just had to tackle better. It doesn’t matter what you do if they don’t tackle well.”
Penn State’s offensive players, unaccustomed to watching their defensive buddies miss so many tackles early on, were just as surprised to have only six first-half possessions, only two of which ended in points. Kafka’s fumble on the game’s second play from scrimmage gave the Nittany Lions the ball at the Northwestern 23-yard line, but Penn State had to settle for three points when the usually sure-handed Graham Zug dropped what would have been a touchdown pass from Daryll Clark.
Clark’s 2-yard touchdown run with 3:39 left in the half, which capped a brisk seven-play, 93-yard drive and tied the score at 10-10, was the only other score of the half for the Big Ten’s leading offense.
“It was a little frustrating,” left tackle Dennis Landolt said. “We had a chance right off the bat to get a touchdown, and we didn’t do it. A couple other times we started getting stuff going and we stalled.”
After Stefan Demos sent Northwestern into the locker room with a 13-10 lead after drilling a 45-yard field goal — into the wind — with three seconds left in the first half, the Nittany Lions got a brisk but firm pep talk from their coach.
“Coach Paterno got in the center of us and really lit into us a little bit and let us know that we didn’t play our best half of football,” Hayes said, “but that it was still a game, and it was our game to win.”
The Nittany Lions tied the score at 13-13 on Collin Wagner’s second field goal of the day, a 23-yarder, after Clark and Chaz Powell got crossed up on a third-and-goal pass. They took the lead on a 2-yard touchdown run up the gut by Brandon Beachum (four carries, 25 yards) with 12:27 to play, capping a seven-play, 58-yard drive, and then the patience started paying off. Rapidly.
After a Northwestern three-and-out, Clark (22 of 31, 274 yards) play-faked, rolled right and unleashed a deep pass down the right sideline to Derek Moye (six catches, 123 yards), who had put a double move on Justan Vaughn before striding past him for a 53-yard catch-and-run touchdown.
“We noticed that there were a couple of voids in their defense,” Clark said. “It was just a matter of when the plays were going to be called for us to run it.”
Three more Persa incompletions and another Northwestern punt gave Penn State the ball at its own 31-yard line. Again, the Nittany Lions wasted little time. Tailback Evan Royster took the handoff and burst untouched up the middle for a 69-yard run, sending him over 100 yards for the 11th time in his career (118 on 15 carries) and putting the final touches on what had somehow become another road blowout for the Nittany Lions, who have won seven of their last eight road games.
Penn State, which returns to Beaver Stadium to host Ohio State at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, handled what could have been a nasty hangover after last week’s big win at Michigan and some agitating special teams plays (the Nittany Lions had 12 men on the field on one specialty play, 10 on another and let the Wildcats pick up a first down on a botched punt snap) with the resolve that has defined the second month of their season.
“You’re gonna have days like that. You have to be able to overcome them,” Paterno said. “They hung in there. They didn’t panic at halftime. I thought they did a good job.”
In Print
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