MINNEAPOLIS — Quarterback Drew Allar retreated to the sideline Saturday where his offensive linemen were already seated with their helmets off. With No. 4 Penn State clinging to a 1-point lead in its eventual 26-25 win at Minnesota with 3:47 remaining, the Nittany Lions’ punt team took the field.
Center Nick Dawkins reached for the iPad to get another look at the series that ended with Allar’s 8-yard scamper falling a yard short of a first down. Penn State’s path to hosting a College Football Playoff game was about to get congested if James Franklin’s team was not aggressive.
“I was thinking we were actually gonna punt it,” said middle linebacker Kobe King. “I was like defense, come on. Let’s get ready to get out there.”
Punter Riley Thompson waited for the football on fourth-and-1 at the Penn State 34-yard line. In an instant, Thompson bailed out to his right while freshman tight end Luke Reynolds took the direct snap from walk-on center Dominic Rulli. Allar saw Thompson fly out of view and thought Penn State had a bad snap. Dawkins looked up when he heard the crowd.
“It shocked me because nobody gave me a warning on the sideline,” Allar said.
“I had no idea we called that,” said Dawkins. “I looked up and see him boogying down the field. I’m like ‘Oh! OK! Here we go!’”
Reynolds sliced through the left side of the line for 15 yards, then 20. He secured the ball in his left arm as he darted 32 yards in front of an exuberant Penn State sideline.
Penn State’s push for an 11-1 regular season, the very thing it needs to have a Playoff run begin next month in Beaver Stadium, was saved by three successful fourth-down conversions on the final drive of the game.
With a drive that started with a fake punt and ended with Tyler Warren wisely falling down in bounds after catching a fourth-and-1 pass from Allar that gained 11 yards, Penn State wasn’t leaving its postseason fate up to chance. After letting Minnesota dictate the flow of the game most of the afternoon by passing on a pair of fourth-and-1 opportunities during the first two drives, Franklin’s team slammed the door on the Golden Gophers with creativity, aggressiveness and execution.
“I just felt like we needed to try to end the game on our terms with the ball in our hand,” Franklin said.
Penn State repped this fake punt since the preseason and even gave Rulli the green light to call it about a half dozen times this season, Franklin said. However, the Nittany Lions never got the right look to run it until Saturday when Penn State spent the entire afternoon on upset alert. Franklin expected P.J. Fleck’s team to line up guarding against a fake, but when the Gophers ran their punt return team out instead, Rulli recognized it and make the right check.
“I’ll have to figure out if I owe him lunch or dinner sometime this week,” Allar said of Rulli, who he’s lived with since last year.
Rulli’s call and Penn State’s blocking allowed Reynolds to break loose. Reynolds stewed at halftime because he was on the wrong side of a blocked punt that led to a Minnesota touchdown in the second quarter. Dawkins told him that was in the past. The senior captain watched as the tight end refocused and told him he’d find a way to make it right. With the football in Reynolds’ hands he had his chance.
Four plays later, with 2:10 left in the game Allar surged ahead for 2 yards on a quarterback keeper on fourth-and-1 and the Minnesota 25. Minnesota was coming out of a timeout and rather than getting up to the line and waiting, Penn State quickly broke the huddle and caught Minnesota on its heels. Once again, Penn State was aggressive, and it paid off.
Allar was mad earlier in the game that Penn State used Warren for a pooch punt on fourth-and-9 at the Minnesota 38 instead of trying to go for it at that point in the third quarter. He wanted to show that this offense could ultimately rise to the occasion on the road on a day in which Penn State made plenty of mistakes.
Allar had one final call to make as Penn State bled the clock down to 27 seconds and Fleck used his final timeout. One more fourth-down conversion would end it, and Allar was the one suggesting the play call to Franklin and offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki. Allar wanted to throw the ball. He said everyone on the offense wanted to go for it, too.
The intent on fourth-and-1 from Minnesota’s 14 was to get the ball to running back Nick Singleton in the flat, with Warren as the second read.
“I saw Nick was covered up,” Allar said. “I was like, all right, step up and try to get the first down. I saw Tyler waving his hands, and he did a great job of staying in bounds and also just securing the ball and not scoring a touchdown in that situation.”
As Warren hit the ground, Penn State’s sideline, for the first time all game, could exhale. Safeties coach Anthony Poindexter hugged Franklin and running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider. Quarterbacks coach Danny O’Brien pointed at Allar, who had led the team down the field and didn’t leave the game in doubt. Defensive end Amin Vanover jogged to the far end zone, where he scooped up the Governor’s Victory Bell and carried it back to his teammates.
King, the linebacker, lugged the trophy with him through the bowels of the stadium where he tried to put into words how Penn State stayed the course and now has one more home game against Maryland before an 11-1 season and Playoff berth becomes reality. After watching that final drive from the sideline, he was physically and emotionally drained.
“I was probably standing up that whole fourth quarter,” King said.
(Photo of Luke Reynolds: David Berding / Getty Images)
