The Penn State Nittany Lions entered their meeting with the Ohio State Buckeyes Saturday with hopes of turning around a season that has been very disappointing.
It didn’t happen.
OSU dominated every aspect of the game and handily sent Penn State back to a not so Happy Valley with a 45-6 loss. The OSU victory delighted a record crowd of 98,124 and left Penn State Coach Joe Paterno shaking his head.
“These are tough days,” Paterno said. “I have to keep my head. I’m not going to say I’m going to do this or that and I’m not going to say if I think we can play harder. I know we have to play better football. How we’re going to do that, I just don’t know.”
The 39-point defeat was Paterno’s worst ever, surpassing 38-point losses to Nebraska in 1983 and UCLA in 1966.
OSU coach John Cooper was amazed and bewildered by his team’s performance.
“Obviously, I’m a happy football coach,” he said. “Never did I dream that we would beat a Penn State football team as badly as we did today. I thought Steve (Bellisari) played his best football game in the first half. I’m happy with the way we played offense, happy with the way we played defense and the kicking game was good enough.”
The start of the game was delayed 20 minutes due to thunderstorms, but the rain did not deter the Buckeyes from coming out of the gate fired up. OSU’s first drive of the game started at their own eight yard line, but on the next three plays, Derek Combs, senior tailback, ripped off runs of 12, 8, and 10 yards to get the offense going.
Combs, who carried 23 times for 86 yards and one touchdown, said the Bucks executed their game plan.
“It’s raining, it’s wet out there, you got to establish a running game before you can start anything else,” Combs said.
“That’s the first thing the coaches talked about today. We wanted to establish the running game first to open up the passing game.”
Did they ever. After Jonathan Wells picked up three yards on the ground, Bellisari hit fullback Jamar Martin for a gain of 13 yards. On the next play Bellisari found a wide-open Chad Cacchio for 35 more yards. The offense was rolling. The drive ended with Martin scoring his first touchdown of the year on a one-yard rush. Dan Stultz’s point after attempt was good and the Bucks were ahead 7-0.
It soon became 14-0 after OSU marched 50 yards in two minutes and six seconds on their second possession of the game. The drive was capped on a strange play.
Tight end Darnell Sanders caught a touchdown pass from Bellisari after it had deflected off teammate Ken-Yon Rambo and a Penn State defender.
“I saw the ball get tipped around a couple of times, and I saw I had a chance to get it,” Sanders said. “It kind of just fell in my hands.”
Stultz’s field goal in the second quarter gave OSU 17-0 lead at the half.
Penn State got on the board in the second half. The Lions received good field position after B.J. Sander’s punt traveled only 22 yards. Three plays later, Penn State’s running back Eric McCoo rushed over his right end for a two-yard touchdown. The score remained 17-6 after Ryan Primanti missed the extra point.
Any thought of a Lion comeback was quickly quelled after Ohio State scored three third-quarter touchdowns to put the game away. Combs scored his first touchdown of the year capping an 11-play 73-yard drive. Tailback Jerry Westbrooks got into the action on the Bucks next drive. He took the ball on second-and-goal and literally muscled his way into the end zone. Westbrooks bowled over Penn State cornerback Bryan Scott before carrying him into the end zone.
The offense was cruising, but so were the 11 silver bullets on defense. Ohio State limited the Lions to 213 total yards and took over the game from the very beginning.
“We were on top of this team from the first snap,” said defensive end Brent Johnson. “There was never a doubt in my mind that it was getting out of hand.”
The OSU defense accomplished one of their goals by scoring a touchdown. Johnson caused backup quarterback Matt Senneca to fumble allowing nose guard Mike Collins to scoop up the ball and rumble 11 yards for OSU’s fifth defensive touchdown in four games. The score ended the third quarter and put the Bucks up 38-6.
Defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta said his players’ hard work really paid off.
“I think they did a tremendous job,” he said. “Our kids played their rear ends off and did what they had to do to accomplish our goal. Obviously we wanted a shutout, we always want a shutout, but they played hard within the framework we asked them to do.”
Freshman Sam Maldonado added a late fourth-quarter score to give Ohio State a 45-6 victory.
The Bucks are off this Saturday before traveling to Wisconsin in two weeks.
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