After Zak Kustok sneaked in for a touchdown once again, it looked as if Northwestern would grab off a late-and-narrow victory. The Wildcats had done just that five times in its previous 15 games and Saturday at Ryan Field, they were up four points on Penn State with just 2 minutes 3 seconds remaining.
All that remained was for the Wildcats’ defense to stop the winless Nittany Lions, who before this affair had scored a grand total of 31 points in four games.
“We were excited to go out there and play,” linebacker Billy Silva said.
“That’s what you live for on defense. A close game, and it’s the defense’s turn to go out and do our thing. We just didn’t do it. It was the same as it was all day long. They nickel-and-dimed us and we didn’t have enough guys make plays.”
Instead it was Penn State that made the plays to run off with a 38-35 upset of Northwestern. The victory was the 323rd in Joe Paterno’s distinguished career, tying the Nittany Lions coach with Bear Bryant as the winningest major-college coach in history. It came on a 4-yard touchdown pass from Zack Mills to Eric McCoo with 22 seconds left.
“What they needed to do, they did today,” Paterno said of his players.
And what the Wildcats needed to do, they didn’t. They got the ball on their 45 after the kickoff following the Nittany Lions’ score. Two Kustok completions brought a second-and-5 at the Penn State 40.
Seven seconds remained and, Northwestern coach Randy Walker said, “I thought we had time for two more plays. . . . We hoped to get a catch-and-throw down to the 30 and then take a swing at it.”
He instead got a play that broke down. By the time Kunle Patrick dove and caught Kustok’s offering time was gone and this one was over.
“Tonight I didn’t have much to say,” Walker said, recalling his remarks to his players. “It was a very difficult game, a very difficult game for me to watch.
“We danced around the fire a couple of times before. I warned them a couple weeks ago that if we danced around the fire long enough, we’d get burned. We danced around and danced around and danced around out there, and we got burned. Today there were no miracles, there were no last-second heroics.”
He instead saw a truly shoddy performance from his defense, which was matched against the worst rushing team in major-college football. In its first four games, the Nittany Lions had averaged 40.8 yards on the ground. Saturday they topped that with better than 11 minutes left in the first half.
In their first four games, the Nittany Lions totaled 163 yards on the ground. Saturday they ended with 213. In its first four games, the Nittany Lions failed to score a touchdown on the ground. Saturday they scored one with 4:01 remaining in the first half and tacked on two more.
In its first four games, Penn State never had a runner gain more than 47 yards on the ground. Saturday Larry Johnson gained 68 before getting injured late in the third quarter and sitting down for the day.
The NU offense resurrected itself behind Kustok, who rushed for 127 yards and three touchdowns and threw for another while going 23-of-40 for 298 more yards. But the Nittany Lions countered with a variety of backs, and Northwestern’s defenders missed countless tackles on each of them.
“I can’t explain that,” Walker said. “I saw guys in place to make plays, but to me it looked like a void out there. It looked to me like we were waiting for them to screw up.”
“They’re pretty good backs, but not so good we shouldn’t be able to tackle them,” defensive end Napoleon Harris said.
Harris did make a big hit during the Nittany Lions’ last, winning drive, and with it knocked out Penn State starting quarterback Matt Senneca with just 1:39 remaining.
In his place came redshirt freshman Zack Mills, who immediately completed a screen and ran an option to get his team a first-and-10 at the Wildcats 40.
Even though Mills had come in cold, the Northwestern defense could not stop him. That is how shabby it was Saturday as Mills completed a 17-yard crossing pattern to Bryant Johnson to get his team down to the 17, and then a 13-yard out to Johnson on a third-and-10 to carry it down to the 4.
A play later he found McCoo for the winner, and three plays after that, time finally ran out on the Wildcats.
“I’m angry at how we played in some places. . . . It was very, very apparent we have to improve,” Walker finally said, and no one disagreed.
