Lions turn in ugly performance, but win on beautiful long TD pass

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Tied, 24-all. Three minutes to go. Against woeful Indiana, a 31-point underdog.

This was bad. Really bad. Because no matter what might happen, this game was an eyesore that indicated Penn State has a lot more problems than anybody could have imagined.

All of that is still true.

But this much also is true: The Nittany Lions avoided complete humiliation and found a way -- the most ironic of ways, actually -- to get the job done Saturday afternoon.

They failed the eye test, sure, but survived the scoreboard test, 33-24. And in sports, hey, the latter is really what's supposed to matter most.

"Really proud of our guys. Battled, were resilient. Found a way to get a win," James Franklin said.

Goodness, can you imagine the grief that would have come Franklin's way had the No. 10 Lions blown this one? It would have been one of the worst losses in program history.

But ... Penn State avoided all of that and kept its College Football Playoff hopes alive, winning an ugly game on this beautiful play.

Oh, the irony.

For weeks, one of the big story lines around the program has been Penn State's inability to connect -- or even attempt -- deep passes. With the game on the line, this time everything played out perfectly.

The call was great.

Drew Allar's throw was on target.

KeAndre Lambert-Smith made the catch.

"It was pretty exciting," KLS said. "I noticed man coverage early, and I knew it would just be one on one, route was there. Turned, (ball) in the air, Drew gave me a perfect ball, and I just made the play, stayed inbounds. I needed that touchdown."

Boy, did Penn State ever need that touchdown.

The Lions, sluggish off a rough loss at Ohio State last week, played poorly on both sides of the ball most of the day. Even the defense had a bad day in this one.

It's stunning to say this, but Indiana actually outplayed Penn State in a lot of ways. But the Hoosiers made a couple of big mistakes that proved costly, muffing a punt and missing a field goal.

Penn State made this huge mistake. But in all honesty, this very well could turn out to be perhaps the best interception in program history.

That was Allar's first-career interception after 311 pass attempts. He set a new FBS record for most career attempts without a pick to start his career, blowing away the old mark of 209 by Baylor's Robert Griffin III in 2008.

It was a bad interception, no doubt, deep in his own territory with Penn State leading, 24-21. A terrible decision and terrible throw that very easily could have cost Penn State the game.

"In that situation, I can't put the ball in jeopardy," Allar said. "Being up three, kind of backed up in our own territory at like the 10 or something like that. At the end of the day, I just can't do that. I should have probably just ate the sack and give the punt team a chance to flip the field."

What happened after Allar's interception was some of the worst coaching you'll see.

Indiana's Tom Allen, whose team had fought hard and played well all day, neutered his offense when it had a chance to try and grab the lead. The Hoosiers took over at Penn State's 21-yard line, and instead of being aggressive at all and trying to score a go-ahead touchdown, Allen had the offense run three plays right into the line for a total of 4 yards.

The Hoosiers kicked a 35-yard field goal with 2:58 left to tie the game at 24.

Here was Allen's reasoning for staying so conservative.

"We're running the ball really, really well, and then when we get to third down, we talked real quick and said, 'Hey, we're in field goal range. Don't risk a takeaway,'" he said. "They're really good at taking the ball away. They're a great pressure team on third-and-6. And we felt, you know, we're already in field goal range. It was just we thought the smart thing to do to not put ourselves in a position to give away those points and lose the game that way."

But Indiana went ahead and lost the game in a different way, dropping Allen's team to 2-6. Many people are expecting the coach to get fired after this season.

So, what you have here is a coach whose team was playing way, way above its head, and even though it really had nothing to lose by staying aggressive, the coach decided to play not to lose instead of playing to win.

Understandably, there were a whole lot more calls for Allen to be fired after the game, despite his team nearly pulling off a massive upset on the road.

Getting back to the Allar interception that set up that whole sequence ...

One narrative that's been circulating for a while is that Allar was so concerned about not turning the ball over that he was being too conservative and not taking enough chances in the passing game. But by not taking chances, Penn State was actually hurting itself because it couldn't keep defenses honest.

Allar denied that throwing the interception might have led to some kind of silver lining. But Lambert-Smith said he actually believes the interception may have helped in the long run.

First, here's what Allar said:

"No, I mean, to me, all that talk is kind of weird," Allar said, "because I shouldn't have thrown that ball at the end of the day. But I'm not going to not be aggressive to not throw an interception. That's not what you have to do at quarterback. You have to take what's there, and sometimes you do have to be aggressive. Sometimes it comes back to bite you, like it did for me today. But I don't think it relieved any pressure or anything like that."

Lambert-Smith, on the other hand, did see it that way.

"It may sound a little weird, but I'm happy he got the pick out of the way," KLS said. "I told him, we're sticking with you, we got 100 percent belief in you, shake that off. And he was able to put that back and deliver a dime."

Penn State took several deep shots Saturday, but misfired, including on tries to KLS and Malik McClain.

Franklin said after the game that the team goes into every game with plans to take deep shots, but sometimes plays unfold differently.

The coach was asked if it was a relief to see Allar finally hit on one of the deep balls.

"No, but it was awesome," Franklin replied. "I enjoyed it. That was awesome. I wouldn't describe it that way (as a relief), but yeah, obviously Drew's being able to sit in there and deliver that ball. KeAndre, being able to make that play and finish and stay in bounds was awesome.

"As you guys know, we talked about it enough. We talked about it a bunch. We've got to continue to be able to do that. So, that was awesome. It was awesome."

As for taking more shots down the field, Franklin said this:

"So, we called, I don't know, like every game, probably called eight. Typically when we call a go route, it's not just a go. So, it's a read route. If they're off and bailing, then we sit it down in front of them. The one that we threw to KeAndre, earlier in the game on a crossing route that we missed, that was the same exact play call. They bailed their corners. And obviously, we're not just going to throw it."

The way things played out, Allar throwing the interception and then coming right back with a long touchdown pass to win the game could turn out to be a defining moment of the young quarterback's career.

Franklin spoke a few weeks ago about how Allar has played a lot, and so there are really no more "firsts" to be focused on with his development. But this situation clearly was an exception.

"Yeah, I think that's a fair 'first,'" Franklin said. "That is a legitimate first. You throw your first interception, how are you going to respond from it? I thought he handled it really well and delivered a big-time throw. Big time."

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THE INJURIES

DE Chop Robinson missed the game after getting injured at Ohio State last week. Dani Dennis-Sutton got the start in Robinson's place.

WR Harrison Wallace III was injured in the first half and did not return. He was seen on the sideline with his arm in a sling in the second half.

THE SCHEDULE

Penn State travels to Maryland next week for a very intriguing game. Kickoff is 3:30 p.m. on FOX.

THE CONTENT

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