Late Buckeye Rally Shows Penn State Who's Elite and Who's Merely Great

It's more than flakes that are frosted in Happy Valley.

Penn State coach James Franklin, fresh of a loss capped by an incredibly dumb 4th-&-the-Game call he made, thinks his crew's got another level to reach.

The Ohio State Buckeyes earned every point of the 27-26 victory, doing what Franklin says elite teams do when the rubber meets the road.

 

While the Buckeyes were lighting the afterburners with a pair of touches in the final six minutes, the Nittany Lions chose a different path.

 

Their mega-hyped QB, Trace McSorley, was living up to every claim:

• 25 carries for 175 yards, including a 51 yards, and
• 16-32 through the air for 286 yards and 2 TDs, including this OBJ-level grab by Juwan Johnson:

 

Apparently, though, great team coaches would not consider Johnson and use McSorley as a decoy on that crucial 4th-&-5.

Odds are an elite coach woulda figured those stats weren't lying.

 

So, while the Nittany Lions began overthinking things, the Buckeyes just kept playing.

All jargon aside, Ohio State players stayed true to their individual assignments, which ultimately led to making their own breaks.

 

Today was the 10th anniversary of St Timothy Tebow's Sorry speech. It came after a Florida loss, and was followed by the Gators running the table and picking up a BCS title. Now, it's emblazoned on a plaque at the Swamp.

Maybe Franklin was trying to make history rhyme at his post-game presser:

 

Shoulda given that dissertation last year, when they also lost to Ohio State by one after blowing a double-digit lead late in the game.

From here on out, both teams should be favored to win the rest of their games, but to paraphrase that late, great realist, Dennis Green, if you wanna crown them now, then crown their ass.

But nutty stuff happens every season in college football, so we don't know yet if they are who we thought they were.

 

Maybe somebody won't this time.