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closeBuckeyes’ defense, special teams smack Lions with second loss
Jeff Rice
UNIVERSITY PARK — The Big Ten’s most explosive offense inched forward — four yards here, two yards there — and then staggered backward. The big plays that had always come this season — sometimes early, sometimes late, but always — never came.
CDT/Nabil K. Mark
Navorro Bowman tackles Ray Small. Penn State lost to Ohio State 24-7 November 7, 2009. CDT/Nabil K. Mark
No. 11 Penn State spent its 300th game in Beaver Stadium at the mercy of a dominant Ohio State defense Saturday, mustering only 201 yards of offense in a 24-7 loss to the 15th-ranked Buckeyes in front of 110,033 fans.
“It’s just hard to succeed as an offense when you don’t develop a rhythm, both in running and passing,” said Penn State quarterback Daryll Clark, who threw for 125 yards on 28 attempts. “When it’s spotty, it’s kind of hard to complete drives.”
Only Clark’s 1-yard touchdown plunge on a fourth-and-goal — and television replays showed he might not have broken the plane with the football — early in the second quarter prevented what would have been the Buckeyes’ fourth shutout of the season.
Ohio State (8-2, 5-1 Big Ten) won the game at the line of scrimmage, shutting down both the Nittany Lions’ running attack (30 carries, 76 yards) and putting serious heat on Clark on nearly every throw. Junior defensive end Cameron Hey-ward, who had both of the Buckeyes’ sacks, made nine other tackles and, lining up on both edges and occasionally on the interior, evenly distributed his abuse of Penn State’s offensive linemen.
“They beat us just enough up front that they were able to control things,” Penn State coach Joe Paterno said.
That was putting it gently. Heyward’s 6-yard sack of Clark on the Nittany Lions’ first play from scrimmage set the tone for the evening and led to the first of seven three-and-outs for Penn State (8-2, 4-2) that came into the game averaging 429 yards per game.
Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel let his defense and opportunistic special teams lead the way, keeping the pressure off his mercurial sophomore quarterback Terrelle Pryor. The Jeannette native was quiet for much of the game (8-of-17 for 125 yards passing, 50 yards on five carries) in his anticipated return to Pennsylvania but made four big plays, two with his arm and two with his feet, to provide his defense with more points than it would need.
Ohio State took a 7-0 lead after a 41-yard punt return by Ray Small set the Buckeyes up at Penn State’s 9-yard line. Two plays later, Pryor escaped a Navorro Bowman tackle, out-ran two more defenders and dove into the end zone for a 7-yard touchdown just three minutes and 12 seconds into the game.
A 22-yard pass from Pryor to Dane Sanzenbacher on third down set up the Buckeyes’ next score, a 37-yard field goal from Devin Barclay, who was elevated to starter after Aaron Pettrey was lost for the season with an injury last week.
Ohio State’s final touchdown, a swing pass from Pryor to tailback Brandon Saine, who leaped into the end zone with 9:37 left in the fourth quarter, was set up by the 6-foot-6 quarterback’s 12-yard scramble on a third-and-11, one of several instances where Pryor simply out-ran a Penn State blitz.
“You have to keep such good leverage on him because of how fast he gets to the perimeter,” Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said.
The play of the game, though, came with Ohio State leading 10-7 in the final minutes of the third quarter. Pryor, who had thrown just 13 passes in 43 offensive plays to that point, dropped back and fired a bomb to a streaking DeVier Posey. Penn State cornerback D’Anton Lynn was anticipating one of the two Ohio State receivers on his side of the field to break back in and the other to run a vertical route. But both receivers ran streaks.
“I hesitated for a half a second, and they both went,” Lynn said. “And one got behind me.”
Free safety Nick Sukay was too late to help, and Posey cradled the pass in stride for a 62-yard touchdown.
“He’s capable of making plays with his arm, he just doesn’t do it on a consistent basis,” Lynn said of Pryor, who entered the game with a 55 percent completion rate. “To give up a big play like that in a tight game, it changed the momentum a whole lot.”
But the Buckeyes might have already had all the points they needed, simply because of the domination up front. Ohio State’s linemen ran a few twists and stunts and got great support from linebackers Brian Rolle and Ross Homan (10 tackles apiece) but were too much for Clark’s blockers to handle at every turn.
“It’s stuff we can handle and have handled before,” Penn State left tackle Dennis Landolt said. “We just didn’t execute tonight.”
Clark, always accountable, said that he could have played “10 times better.” But he was hit after most of his throws and rushed into several of them.
“The offensive line did what they could in certain situations. You win some and you lose some,” Clark said. “There was just a couple of plays where they definitely got back there faster than I expected.”
Ohio State held Penn State’s top receiver, Derek Moye, to no catches with safety help over the top. Graham Zug had seven catches for 96 yards for Penn State, but the rest of the Nittany Lions caught a total of five passes. Penn State survived an early injury scare to Evan Royster and got Stephfon Green back from injury but had no rushes longer than nine yards.
The struggles of the offense and a huge day from Small (130 yards on seven punt returns) gave Ohio State outstanding field position all afternoon, which made Tressel’s conservative playcalling (the Buckeyes punted from the Penn State 29-yard line in the first half) stand up.
“They played a smart game,” defensive tackle Jared Odrick said. “Played smart and didn’t turn the ball over. You can’t really slight Ohio State’s effort.”
The Nittany Lions missed an opportunity to move into a first-place tie in the Big Ten standings with No. 8 Iowa, which was upset at home by Northwestern on Saturday. Instead, Ohio State is in that spot and has a chance to take first place outright if it beats the Hawkeyes on Saturday in Columbus.
Penn State, which hosts Indiana at noon Saturday, will use the week to recover from its sixth loss in its last eight meetings with the Buckeyes and try to figure out how to get the rhythm back in its offense.
“We’ve been making a lot of big plays,” Paterno said. “And we didn’t make any.”
In Print
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