Will Levis couldn’t beat out Clifford, and now he is starting at Kentucky. All I know is we didn’t take care of business.”įranklin, though, has not been able to find anyone he likes better. “It’s hard to assess how I play individually. “The key stat, obviously, is wins and loss,” said Clifford, who was greeted by boos when he took the field for the final possession. On the same day he set a record for touchdown passes for a Penn State quarterback, Clifford turned the ball over four times. The two, like most coach-and-quarterback tandems, are the twin pillars of their team’s successes and shortcomings.Ĭlifford, 24, is much the same quarterback he was when he took over as a starter in 2019 - a gritty competitor who has rarely been able to lift his team past the best teams with his arm or decision-making. “I kind of just blacked out,” he said.Īs Clifford returned to the sideline after the touchdown, he walked right past Franklin on the sideline without making eye contact. He wasn’t able to recall intercepting a pass since he was a sophomore in high school. Tuimoloau applied the crowning blow when he intercepted his second pass, returning it 14 yards for a touchdown. Stroud then passed to tight end Cade Stover over the middle on the next play and busted through three tackles into the end zone for a 30-21 lead. On Penn State’s second play, Tuimoloau stripped the ball from Clifford after sacking him, then pounced on the loose ball at the Penn State 24-yard line. “It just went ugly really quick,” Porter Jr. for 21 yards, then hit Emeka Egbuka for 13 yards before TreVeyon Henderson bolted 41 yards for a touchdown. Stroud threw a strike to Marvin Harrison Jr. Allen scored on the next play.Įven with the crowd roaring, Ohio State’s offense - which had been stymied for much of the afternoon - came to life. Penn State converted one fourth down, got another on one of receiver Parker Washington’s spectacular catches, and had a touchdown reversed after a replay review, which concluded that tight end Brenton Strange recovered teammate Mitchell Tinsley’s fumble just before the goal line. Two Ohio State penalties - a third-down pass interference and an illegal formation on a missed field goal - kept the drive alive. “We had them right where we wanted them,” said Joey Porter Jr., a junior cornerback and the son of the former Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker.Īllen’s run, on a fourth down from the 1-yard line, capped a 13-play drive in which every one of them seemed ready to turn the game’s direction. Still, when Penn State freshman running back Kaytron Allen broke through the arms of Ohio State middle linebacker Tommy Eichenberg behind the line and squirmed over the goal line with 9 minutes 26 seconds to play, it put Penn State ahead, 21-16. “I thought we had every right to win that game.” “This one’s a heartbreaker, just because we had our shots,” said quarterback Sean Clifford, a sixth-year senior who will leave school with two victories against his two biggest rivals - wins over Michigan in 20. It was Penn State’s 11th consecutive loss to a top 10 opponent, a streak that dates back to a 2016 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game. This was the fourth time in Franklin’s nine seasons they have come from behind in the fourth quarter or overtime to beat Penn State. With a blue-and-white clad crowd of 108,433 rocking Beaver Stadium on crisp, sun-kissed afternoon and the inspired Nittany Lions (6-2, 3-2) nursing a fourth-quarter lead, the home team unraveled as it so often has against the Buckeyes (8-0, 5-0). Saturday’s 44-31 loss to second-ranked Ohio State was another sign that while the 13th-ranked Nittany Lions are not bad, they aren’t good enough to conquer the two behemoths in their Big Ten realm: Michigan, which waxed them two weeks ago, and Ohio State.
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