In a season that has felt like Penn State was beating its head against a wall repeatedly with no result, the Lions seemed to be doing exactly that against Michigan State\u2019s defensive line on Saturday.<\/p>\n
But this time, things finally broke Penn State\u2019s way in a 28-10 win at Spartan Stadium.<\/p>\n
Mostly, it was Michigan State\u2019s will that was broken on a time-consuming, run-nearly every-down, chew-up-nearly all the fourth quarter drive that was capped by Devonte Ross\u2019s second touchdown of the day. It covered 76 yards and more than nine minutes and helped Penn State finally get its first conference (and road) win of the season.<\/p>\n
While the Ross touchdown was technically a catch, his second of the day from Ethan Grunkemeyer, the drive was comprised of smart scrambles and physical running from both Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton. It was the kind of drive that Penn State fans dreamed of salting away bigger wins this season – like last week against Indiana.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the Lions were able to leave the field with the Land Grant Trophy and kept hopes of a non-losing season and bowl appearance as they\u2019re now 4-6 heading into next week\u2019s Senior Day contest against Nebraska.<\/p>\n
Penn State controlled much of Saturday\u2019s game, but third down failures – and a couple of fourth-down failures – saw the Lions clinging to a 14-10 lead entering the fourth.<\/p>\n
After a pair of Dani Dennis-Sutton sacks stalled a Michigan State drive early in the fourth, the Lions took possession and put together the clutch touchdown drive.<\/p>\n
A Zion Tracy strip sack helped clinch the game on Michigan State\u2019s next drive and set up a final pair of long Allen runs, including a score.<\/p>\n
Allen went for more than 180 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, while Grunkemeyer was smart with the ball in the second half. He finished with two touchdown passes and, though he took sacks, avoided any big mistakes that ended in turnovers.<\/p>\n
The game could not have started worse for Penn State. The Lions took the ball first and after two bland running plays and a fumbled snap, they punted to Michigan State.<\/p>\n
It took the Spartans just one play to go ahead as Elijah Tau-Tolliver broke free for a 57-yard touchdown run.<\/p>\n
The Lions answered quickly, thanks in part to the Grunkemeyer to Pena connection. Pena made two clutch catches that set up a short Kaytron Allen touchdown to tie the game at 7-7.<\/p>\n
Tau-Tolliver had a huge third down catch that ultimately set up a Spartan field goal in the second quarter to give Michigan State a 10-7 lead. But, Grunkemeyer went deep to Ross on Penn State\u2019s next possession to put the Lions up 14-10, a margin they would carry into the half.<\/p>\n
There was frustration though for Penn State, who was stopped twice on fourth down plays inside Michigan State territory in the second quarter. The second of those was well within field goal range for Ryan Barker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a season that has felt like Penn State was beating its head against a wall repeatedly with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,24283,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-294145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-penn-state-football","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}