Third down conversions cost Spartans

State College, Pa. — Sometimes the explanation is as simple as it looks.

Early on during Saturday’s Big Ten Championship game at Beaver Stadium, No. 17 MSU continually held No. 7 Penn State and their vaunted “Spread HD” attack in check — at least for the first two downs.

Then third down hit, which was where the game was won for the Nittany Lions and lost for the Spartans.

The Nittany Lions converted 13-of-17 third downs (76 percent) and the Penn State offense exploded, putting up a school-record 557 yards as Penn State defeated the Spartans 49-18.

“They executed the screens right and we didn’t do the right thing to stop it,” senior defensive tackle Justin Kershaw said of the defense’s struggles on third down. “That’s what I think hurt us … if you watched the film there’s probably a bunch of little things that we could have corrected to get back in the game.”

Penn State’s first score of the game came on a third-and-goal situation on the MSU 5-yard line early in the first quarter when quarterback Darryll Clark rolled to his right and found Graham Zug for a touchdown.

Although the Nittany Lions’ first score of the game put the Spartans in a hole they wouldn’t climb out of, perhaps the most disheartening third down conversation came midway through the second.

After MSU’s best drive to that point had failed, sophomore linebacker Greg Jones came out and almost single-handedly quieted the 109,845 fans in Happy Valley with back-to-back tackles for loss to force Penn State into a third-and-17 situation.

Jones and the rest of the defense came in, but Clark dumped the ball off to running back Evan Royster on a screen and the sophomore scampered 37 yards to MSU’s 41-yard line.
The Nittany Lions eventually scored on the drive — only after converting another third down.

“Initially it was the screens,” MSU head coach Mark Dantonio said of what was bothering his team. “It seemed like when we pressured they’d hit the screen, when we played coverage — even when we spied the guy on the screen they got us out … after that they went over the top on us and pulled a trick play on us.”

Although Dantonio and his players said they practiced the screens throughout the past week, the third down failures only got worse for the Spartans.

After the game Dantonio simply said teams can’t win if they don’t stop teams on third down — something that rings even more true considering three of Penn State’s seven touchdowns came on scoring drives where they converted multiple third downs.

“They (hurt us) on the screens in there today, which we practiced, and they just had a lot of success on that,” junior free safety Danny Fortener said. “We had them third and long a lot but we just couldn’t stop anyone on a third and long situation and that’s something that we have to do.

“It’s something that could’ve won the game for us.”