Penn State’s six-year pileup of pain at the hands of Ohio State began miserably enough, in 2017, when the Nittany Lions frittered away an 11-point lead in the final five minutes to lose by a point. That was bad, but it quickly got worse.
The fourth-and-5 handoff to nowhere that killed a potential game-winning drive in ‘18? That crashing anticlimax of a play call followed three successive timeouts—two by Penn State, one by Ohio State—and it came after blowing a 12-point lead in the last half of the fourth quarter. That was the White-Out that lives in infamy. That was the nadir. It doesn’t mean it was the end.
There was the rally that fizzled in ’19, scoring zero points in the final four offensive possessions after surging back from a 21–0 deficit. That comeback stalled when a potential tying drive in the third quarter was pushed back from a first-and-10 at the Ohio State 11 to a fourth-and-23 field goal. The Buckeyes, naturally, went on to the College Football Playoff.
