While We Are ... Still Crying (over Iowa): 6 losses that still haunt Penn State fans
Note: This is part of a series that will run periodically during the season. Gloat while you can, fans of undefeated B1G programs. Your time is coming. Badgers fans have already had theirs.
Under James Franklin, Penn State football has raised aspirations only to break fans’ hearts. The Nittany Lions have come tantalizingly close to their head coach’s “great program” ideal, making the bad losses all the more crushing. Latest case in point, 2 days ago at Iowa.
This six-pack is hard to swallow, but once you get through the first one … . Oh, who am I kidding, they won’t go down any easier, especially since we’re ranking them in reverse order and 4 of the losses came by a single point.
The worst 6 losses for the Lions in recent memory, all but 1 from the Franklin era:
6. Indiana 36, Penn State 35 (2020)
All the late points — 30 combined from the 1:42 mark of the fourth quarter through the 1 OT period — obscure the fact that Penn State had the season-opener won, 21-20. Until …
Until Devyn Ford ran 14 yards through a phantom Indiana defense for a 5-SECOND touchdown, apparently missing the message that time — or lack thereof — was on the Lions’ side.
His FIRST-DOWN jaunt left the Hoosiers with 1:42 and 1 timeout, setting up a Murphy’s Law chain reaction:
- Michael Penix Jr. leads a 75-yard drive in 80 seconds, capping it himself with a running 1-yard TD and a running 2-point conversion.
- PSU’s distance kicker Jordan Stout misses from 57 yards after PSU doesn’t try to get closer on 3rd-and-1 with the clock stopped and 8 seconds left.
- After Penn State scores a TD to open overtime, Penix responds with a 9-yard TD pass to Whop Philyor and a diving, ball-extended-to-the-pylon 2-point run.
Penix’s 2-pointer survived an official review, and thus began a program-worst 5-game season-opening losing streak for the Lions. Whatever anyone thinks of the officials’ call on the final play, Ford’s TD run — and the coaching that allowed it — was worse.
5. Pitt 42, Penn State 39 (2016)
No one knew it at the time, certainly not the just-coming-of-age Lions of the McSorley-Barkley-Moorhead era, but this loss in Week 2 ended up keeping Penn State out of the CFP.
Making just his second career start, Trace McSorley rallied the Lions from a 21-point deficit and had them in scoring range (the Pitt 31-yard line) with more than a minute remaining. But then the young QB, who would go on to win a school-record 31 games as a starter, threw perhaps the worst pass of his folk-hero career. With the team in borderline range of a tying FG, with plenty of time and downs remaining (it was 2nd down), McSorley, to quote the AP story, “lofted a rainbow toward the back of the end zone to no one in particular.”
Ryan Lewis’s interception, paired with Michigan’s 49-10 rout of the Lions 2 weeks later, negated Franklin’s only victory over Ohio State and B1G champion PSU’s 9-game winning streak just enough to keep the program out of the CFP.
The Panthers celebrated in front of a raucous crowd at Heinz Field, victors in a rivalry temporarily renewed after 16 years of dormancy.
Penn State finished 11-3 and No. 7 after another painful loss — 52-49 to USC in the Rose Bowl as the Trojans scored the game’s final 17 points in the fourth quarter. Pitt finished the season 8-5.
4. Minnesota 31, Penn State 26 (2019)
Echoing a painful loss from 20 years earlier, the No. 4-ranked Lions (8-0 going in) slipped up against the No. 17 Golden Gophers, losing a battle of unbeatens on the road.
First-year QB Sean Clifford threw the last of his 3 INTs with about 1 minute remaining, sealing exuberant, then-3rd-year coach PJ Fleck’s biggest win ever. The Gophers hadn’t beaten a top 5 team in 20 years and hadn’t done so at home in 42.
The Lions topped the Gophers in yards and first downs, but Minnesota won the turnover battle (1-3) as QB Tanner Morgan played a nearly flawless game (18-of-20, 339 yards, 3 TDs, no INTs) and WR Rashod Bateman went nuts (7-203-1).
Penn State lost 2 weeks later to Ohio State, 28-17, and finished 11-2 and No. 9.
3. Minnesota 24, Penn State 23 (1999)
Some parallels to what would happen against the Gophers 20 years later:
- Penn State enters the late-season game unbeaten (9-0) and ranked in the top 5 (No. 2).
- The Lions’ defense is led by a future NFL first-round pick at linebacker playing in his final college season. This year, it was LaVar Arrington. Two decade later it would be Micah Parsons.
But there were differences, too, ones that make this loss even more painful. The Gophers entered unranked at 5-3, the game was at Beaver Stadium, and Minnesota took the game with a last-play field goal by Dan Nystrom, a freshman who earlier had missed a PAT.
Nystrom got the chance only because a tipped pass on 4th-and-16 with 1:22 left deflected off of one Minnesota receiver’s hands and fell into another’s at the 13-yard line.
Joe Paterno’s last best chance for a third national title was dashed, and Penn State lost 1-score games the next 2 weeks — to Michigan and Michigan State. The Lions finished 10-3 and No. 11.
2. Ohio State 27, Penn State 26 (2018)
The Lions were 4-0 and ranked No. 9 in Trace McSorley’s last-hurrah season. The Buckeyes were No. 4. Though he (and his receivers) would struggle as the season went on, McSorley carried the homestanding Lions to a 12-point fourth-quarter lead, racking up 286 passing yards and running for 175 more on 25 carries.
Penn State outgained OSU by 103 total yards and edged it in first downs and time of possession, too. The turnovers were even, 1-1.
But down the stretch, Penn State played conservative, and Dwayne Haskins threw 2 TD passes in the final 7 minutes to rally the Buckeyes. Haskins led drives of 75 and 96 yards, sandwiched around a PSU 4-play possession.
On its final drive, PSU moved the ball past midfield but then handed off to Miles Sanders deep in the backfield on 4th-and-5. He lost 2 yards, and — anticlimactically for the largest crowd ever to watch a game at Beaver Stadium — that was that. It was all over but the pissing and moaning.
Penn State finished 9-4 and No. 17.
1. Ohio State 39, Penn State 38 (2017)
It’s Trace McSorley and Saquon Barkley’s final season together, and OC Joe Moorhead’s PSU swan song as well. The Lions are 7-0, No. 2 in the country and the talk of the college football world as they travel to The Horseshoe. The Buckeyes are 6-1 and No. 6, having lost to Oklahoma in Week 2.
Despite OSU quarterback JT Barrett playing one of the best games of his life, Penn State builds a 35-20 fourth-quarter lead. Barkley returns the opening kickoff 97 yards, and PSU takes advantage of 2 OSU turnovers to make up for what would be a 246-yard deficit in total offense by the final whistle.
But there was no stopping Barrett, who went 13-for-13 in the fourth quarter for 170 yards and 3 of his 4 TD passes. All told, the 5th-year senior finished 33-for-39 for 328 yards and tacked on another 95 yards on 17 rushes.
Penn State gags away a hangover game the next week at Michigan State, 27-24, killing its CFP chances. The Lions finish 11-2 and No. 8.
(Dis)honorable mention
Maryland 35, Penn State 19 (2020): The Lions gave up 2 nearly identical TDs on deep crossing routes early on, and 27.5-point underdog Maryland totally embarrassed Penn State. Though 2 more losses followed in PSU’s worst start ever (0-5, as you remember all too well from last season), this may have been the low point. The team played awfully in all 3 phases and the coaching seemed nonsensical. By early in the third quarter, the Lions had completely rolled over and trailed 35-7. Beaver Stadium probably would have been eerily quiet even if it wasn’t deserted because of Covid restrictions.
Michigan State 27, Penn State 24 (2017): The Lions fell to 7-2 with this hangover loss the week after then-No. 2 PSU fell 39-38 to Ohio State. The offense fizzled out in the fourth quarter, when the Spartans made 2 FGs to take the victory. Trace McSorley threw for 381 yards and 3 TDs, but also 3 INTs. Had Penn State finished the regular season 11-1 rather than 10-2, the Big Ten might have gotten 2 teams into the CFP that season. The next season, the Lions again followed a 1-point loss to OSU with a narrow loss to the Spartans.
USC 52, Penn State 49 (Rose Bowl following 2016 season): Southern Cal scored the game’s final 17 points over its final 8 minutes and 15 seconds, including a 46-yard walk-off field goal. Sam Darnold threw for 453 yards and 5 TDs, overshadowing monster days by PSU’s Saquon Barkley and Chris Godwin — the only teammates ever to top 175 yards rushing and receiving, respectively, in the same Rose Bowl.