BUCKEYES rule

STATE COLLEGE – There was still life on the home sideline as a monotonous Groundhog Day of a third quarter plodded along.

Penn State defensive players jumped and cheered on the offense to get a sustained drive going. It couldn’t.

Daryll Clark clapped and yelled for the defense to get a key fourth-quarter stop. It didn’t.

The Nittany Lions kept expecting this year’s tilt against Ohio State to be just like last year’s in the second half.

Instead of a conservative, grind-out-the-clock approach, the Buckeyes shocked the Lions by throwing deep for a touchdown late in the third quarter in a 24-7 triumph Saturday at Beaver Stadium.

“The whole ballgame they gave us a good licking,” Penn State’s Joe Paterno said. “They played better than we did today.”

Particularly in the second half. The Buckeyes’ front four bullied Penn State’s offensive line, holding the No. 11 Lions (8-2, 4-2 Big Ten) to just three first downs after halftime.

“We’re better than what we gave today,” said Clark, the senior quarterback. “It’s just hard to put point on the board when you don’t have a consistent rhythm.”

A year ago, Penn State trailed by a field goal late against the Buckeyes, but forced a Terrelle Pryor fumble and turned it into the game’s only touchdown in a 13-6 win over Ohio State.

Pryor and Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel rewrote the script this year. Leading 10-7 at halftime, both sides played the field-position game that this rivalry has become known for, as they took turns punting it away.

There was a sense Ohio State and the customarily cautious Tressel might try to win it 10-7. The Lions apparently felt that way too, because they weren’t prepared for Pryor to go for the jugular on first-and-10 from his own 38-yard line.

Tressel called for a deep ball, with two receivers running verticals down the left side of the field. Running a two-deep zone, deep safety Nick Sukay was responsible for the slot man, Dane Sanzenbacher, while cornerback D’Anton Lynn was on DeVier Posey on the outside.

Lynn said he hesitated when he saw Sanzenbacher going deep as well, and that indecision cost him, as Posey burned past him into the open field. Pryor threw his best ball of the day to hit Posey in stride, which didn’t allow Sukay to catch him either before he hit the end zone for a back-breaking 62-yard score.

“We were in a coverage where the corner got a little careless,” Paterno said.

“It’s completely my fault,” said Lynn. The shaken sophomore was victimized for the first time in an otherwise solid first year as a starter.

Pryor had missed a similar opportunity in the final minute of the first half, as he overthrew Sanzenbacher streaking down the opposite sideline.

Given a second chance, Pryor hit the speedy Posey almost out of nowhere, rattling the Lions and their home crowd of 110,033 -- the fourth largest in the stadium’s 300-game history.

Penn State’s offense (201 total yards) provided no relief with a quick three-and-out, and the 16th-ranked Buckeyes went right back on the march. Pryor led Ohio State on a 10-play drive in the fourth quarter, capping it off with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Saine that put the game away.

Exhausted from chasing Pryor (125 yards passing, 50 rushing) from sideline to sideline for most of the day, the defense didn’t have the energy to come up with a tide-turning takeaway like last season.

“We worked all week to try to stop the scramble and he still made some big plays,” defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said. “He’s a difficult guy, because of how fast he is, to contain. He got the edge a couple times and just outran us.”

Pryor did just that in the first quarter, scoring the game’s opening touchdown by scrambling away from a tackle in the backfield and diving into the end zone for a 6-yard score. A 41-yard punt return by Ray Small had set the Buckeyes up on the Lions’ 9.

Clark (12-of-28, 125 yards, INT) matched his QB counterpart in the second quarter, diving over the pile on fourth-and-goal from the Ohio State 1 to tie the score.

But that proved to be Penn State’s lone extended drive of the game. Backup kicker Devin Barclay hit a 37-yard field goal that gave the Buckeyes that 10-7 lead headed into halftime.

Now Ohio State (8-2, 5-1) is in control of the conference, thanks to Northwestern’s upset of No. 4 Iowa on Saturday. The Buckeyes can take over sole possession of first place by beating the Hawkeyes next week in Columbus.

Certainly Ohio State’s fans know they’re on the verge of a fifth straight year with at least a share of the Big Ten title and a trip to a BCS bowl.

Buckeyes fans half-serenaded, half-mocked Penn State players with the team’s familiar “Seven Nation Army” chant as the downtrodden Lions walked off the field.