Penn State vs. Michigan State Volume 80, Issue 9 November 6, 2017 24 - 27 Letter Just before noon in Spartan Stadium Saturday the video boards at each end of the arena featured a massive Spartan warrior leaping and slashing a Penn State flag with his sword, just as the 24th-ranked Michigan State team charged out of the tunnel. It was a bad omen for the No. 7 Nittany Lions. Just 22:02 into the game with Penn State leading, 14-7, another omen flashed across the sky, and the contest was halted because of “extreme weather conditions.” For safety reasons the NCAA requires that play be halted, the game delayed and fans evacuated from the stadium, whenever there are lightning storms within a prescribed radius of the venue. It had never before happened in 132 seasons of Penn State football. Games had been postponed from the beginning to the end of a season by 9/11, or by a week after President Kennedy’s assassination or a heavy fall snowstorm in bygone eras. But never had a game been delayed, after it had already started. Nor is it common to have lightning storms in November in 47-degree weather. But it happened in East Lansing Saturday and resulted in a three hour and 22 minute delay—the approximate time of a complete college football game. The Michigan State-Penn State contest, which started at noon, didn’t finish until 7:03 p.m.—the approximate ending time for a late afternoon contest that kicks off at 3:30 p.m.for the sake of television. For the fans who had arisen early to attend the annual battle for the Land Grant Trophy, it was like attending a double-header. Except that they spent half of the double-header sitting in the Munn Ice Arena or nearby academic buildings or in their car in a parking lot. And, when the game that stopped at 1:15 p.m. just 7:02 into the second quarter was finally resumed at 4:38 p.m., 80 percent of the 71,605 announced attendance did not return. Most of the locals went home. And a lot of the visitors went to sports bars to watch on television rather than come back to the cold, wet aluminum bleachers and continue to sit through a damp drizzle -- even though that was not nearly as bad as the long, heavy downpour that left huge puddles and a lot of standing water on the playing field. (It took stadium workers a long time to try to squeegee the water off the grass, before the players came back out to warm up all over again, after sitting around in locker rooms, trying to maintain their physical and mental readiness to pick up where they left off, while trying to stay hydrated and munching on Chick-Fil-A sandwiches eventually rustled up by staffers from a local establishment.) Unfortunately, the home team seemed to have maintained that physical and mental readiness to continue better than the visitors. Just four minutes after play resumed, the Spartans tied the game at 14-14, after marching 69 yards across the slippery soaked surface in five plays capped by a 33-yard pass from quarterback Brian Lewerke to wide receiver Felton Davis. Penn State, by contrast, had three rushes for a net of minus one yard, five incomplete passes, and an interception in the final 7:58 of the resumed second quarter till halftime. In the first quarter, the Lions had outgained the home team, 191-111 in passing yardage, 195-123 in total offense and 14-7 on the scoreboard, as DaeSean Hamilton and Saeed Blacknall caught touchdown passes from QB Trace McSorley of 31 and 27 yards, respectively. In the second period, the Spartans outgained Penn State, 106-22 in passing yardage, 129-19 in total offense and 7-0 on the scoreboard. Penn State didn’t score from the first quarter until the last five minutes of the third quarter—and that was just a 26-yard field goal by Tyler Davis, after a 71-yard drive had stalled out at the MS-8. Meanwhile, Michigan State had taken the lead by driving 91 yards on 10 plays in 5:16 to post a 21-14 advantage on its second possession of the second half. The Lions finally got the biggest chunk play of the game on the last play of the third quarter—a 70-yard touchdown pass from McSorley to DeAndre Thompkins—and regained a 24-21 lead in the contest. But those would be the last points the Lions would score. Michigan State put together two long drives that each resulted in field goals in the final frame. The first covered 45 yards in 11 plays, after a personal foul penalty against Penn State gave the Spartans possession near midfield, following the Lions’ kickoff. Without running the ball once in the drive, Lewerke completed six short passes to Felton Davis, Matt Dotson and Cody White to put the ball on the PS-14. Freshman placekicker Matt Couglin booted a 32-yard field goal to tie the contest at 24-24 with 10:56 remaining. Penn State looked like it might jump back on top two minutes later, when McSorley launched a long pass against the wind toward a streaking Saeed Blacknall, who was a step behind free safety David Dowell. But the ball was just a foot short of Blacknall’s hands, when Dowell snared his second interception of the game and returned it 12 yards to the MS-33, before Blacknall caught him from behind to make the tackle. Six plays later cornerback Amani Oruwariye got the ball back for the Lions with a spectacular interception of a tipped ball by making a pirouette move to get his feet down just inches inside the out-of-bounds line at the PS-7 with 7:28 remaining. The Lions had one more opportunity, as they marched 62 yards on nine plays, before stalling out with just four minutes left. McSorley ignited the drive by completing a 13-yard pass to tight end Mike Gesicki on a 3rd-and-8 situation. He hit wide receiver Juwan Johnson with a 20-yard pass, and Penn State got 15 more on a roughing the passer call on the Spartans’ leading tackler Khari Willis. Willis redeemed himself to the home crowd two plays later by sacking McSorley for a nine-yard loss and forcing him to commit an intentional grounding infraction. Facing a third down with 19 yards to go the Lion QB completed a 16-yard aerial to Gesicki, and on 4th-and-three he threw a quick slant pass toward Thompkins. But the man who had 11 minutes earlier hauled in a 70-yard TD toss, could not hang on to the short one. And Penn State turned the ball over with just 4:05 left. Even so, it looked like the game might go into overtime at 24-24, as the clock ticked down while the Spartans methodically moved the ball downfield, until Lewerke threw an incompletion on 3rd-and-4 at the PS-37. Unfortunately, Marcus Allen was called for a roughing the passer penalty, which gave the home team a first down at the PS-22 with less than a minute left. From there the Spartans just milked the clock by running two plays six yards and forcing Penn State to use its last two timeouts. With just four seconds left, Michigan State called its own timeout and rested its fate in the foot of its freshman placekicker. Coughlin drilled a 34-yard field goal through the uprights as time expired, giving the Spartans the three-point upset victory and sending their few thousand fans, who had stuck it out after the long extreme weather delay, rushing the field in delirium. The Nittany Lions, who had risen to No. 2 in the nation by winning their first seven games, have now lost two straight on the road to Top 25 teams by a total of four points. This season’s results have been the reverse of last year, when Penn State lost two games early then went on an improbable nine-game win streak to capture the Big Ten championship. This fall the Lions had a perfect record until losing two during the toughest three-game stretch on their schedule. Penn State dropped to No. 13 in the USA Today Coaches poll and to No. 16 in the AP poll. The two oldest land grant universities’ football teams were as close in yardage gained as in the score Saturday. MSU had 474 yards of total offense to 466 for PSU, and led in rushing, 74-65, but the Lions led in passing 401 to 400. Barkley had one completion in one attempt for 20 yards, so Lewerke’s 33 completions on 56 attempts with one interception and two touchdowns led McSorley in yardage 400 to 381. Lewerke’s total followed closely on the heels of his school record 445 yards on 39 completions in last week’s three- overtime loss at Northwestern. McSorley’s yardage total was just three short of his career-high against Wisconsin in last year’s Big Ten title game. Saturday he completed 26 of 47 attempts with three touchdowns and three interceptions. Perhaps Lewerke’s biggest accomplishment was that eight times out of 14 he turned third-down completions into first downs, including 12 yards on a 3rd and 11; 20 yards on a 3rd and 19; 25 yards on a 3rd and 10; 15 yards on a 3rd and three; 36 yards on a 3rd and 18; 26 yards on a 3rd and 11; 14 yards on a 3rd and 6; and five yards on a 3rd and four.