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EAST LANSING, Mich. — Seven hours after Michigan State kicked off Saturday’s game, the Spartans kicked Penn State’s national title hopes to the curb.
A game that was delayed three hours and 22 minutes by weather finally ended with Matt Coghlin booting a 34-yard field goal with no time remaining to give Michigan State the 27-24 upset of the No. 7 Nittany Lions.
Two weeks after hitting No. 2 in the polls, Penn State finds itself on a two-game losing streak thanks to narrow losses to Ohio State and Michigan State.
“You look at us eight days ago, we’re on top of the world,” tight end Mike Gesicki said. “And now, eight days later, a big reality check.”
And one that James Franklin said will change how the Lions approach the rest of the season.
The Penn State coach was upset with a number of things following the loss.
On offense: “We’re not tough enough. We’re too much of a finesse team.”
On defense: “We’re not getting to the quarterback enough. We rush four, five, six — we’re not getting there consistently enough.”
But most of all, Franklin was angered about what he saw as a lack of focus.
While the 2017 Lions are a much more experienced team than the group that won the Big Ten a year ago, Franklin said the group still lacks maturity, especially when it comes to dealing with greatly raised expectations.
“We’re going to get back to what got us here,” Franklin said. “Which is focusing on being 1-0 and not worrying about anything else. Whatsoever. You achieve that each week, everything else will take care of itself. And I’m going to make sure everyone in our building is crystal clear on that.”
Franklin said he felt the team was too concerned with the College Football Playoff race and the attention that comes with that.
“You can’t just completely avoid it — that’s where the maturity needs to step up,” said quarterback Trace McSorley, who threw for three scores to break the program’s career record for passing touchdowns but also had three interceptions. “We’ve gotta be mature enough team to handle that.
“We thought we had a good handle on it, but I think it’s affecting us a little more than we initially thought.”
Penn State players said they came into Saturday’s game feeling good despite the 39-38 loss to the Buckeyes the week before, and that practices were generally sharp.
“We were motivated. We were excited,” Gesicki said. “That’s why you play this game, why you play for this team, that’s why you come to Penn State. You look at last week, you lose the game by one point. You look at this week, you lose on a last-second field goal.
“You make literally one play in each of those games and we’re sitting here at 9-0, and nobody’s talking about the noise. I do think it can be a distraction. I don’t necessarily think it was a huge distraction for us.”
Regardless, the Lions said they would take Franklin’s words to heart.
“Coach is saying we’re not staying true to who we are,” running back Saquon Barkley said. “And if that’s how he feels, we’ve gotta take that challenge as leaders.”
Barkley had zero yards rushing on six carries by halftime and finished with 63 on 14 crries. Franklin said the lack of a ground game is one of the Lions’ biggest issues moving forward.
“It’s not a Saquon issue, it’s a team issue,” Franklin said. “And we’ve gotta get it corrected.”
“Yeah, It is a little bit frustrating for us,” center Connor McGovern said. “We’ve got to be better finishers,” center Connor McGovern said. “Strain an extra two seconds and continue being mean up front and physical.”
Perhaps most frustrating for the Lions (7-2, 4-2 Big Ten) was the fact that Iowa had given them a huge opportunity on Saturday by hammering Ohio State, increasing Penn State’s odds at making another run at the conference title and the Playoff.
That’s out the door now with two losses and essentially two games behind both the Buckeyes and Spartans (7-2, 5-1) with three games left because of the head-to-head tiebreaker.
What will haunt the Lions is that both games were winnable, unable to close out a fourth-quarter lead on the road each time.
Penn State had led 24-21 on a 70-yard touchdown pass from McSorley to DeAndre Thompkins on the final play of the third quarter.
Tied 24-24 late in the fourth, Franklin went for it on fourth-and-3 rather than trot out a struggling field goal unit for a go-ahead 47-yard field goal. McSorley delivered a ball to Thompkins on a slant, but he couldn’t make the catch this time.
“I thought we had a first down,” said Franklin, who was comfortable with the call. “We didn’t finish the play. … I don’t think trying a 47-yard field goal was in our best interest.”
Michigan State took over and kept the ball for the final 4:05 before Coghlin’s winner. And that only came after the defense, which struggled badly on third downs all day long, appeared to have a stop at the Lions’ 37.
But senior safety Marcus Allen was flagged for roughing the passer, hitting Michigan State’s Brian Lewerke (400 yards passing) low and late. The 15-yard flag moved the Spartans into comfortable field goal range and allowed them to run the clock all the way down.
Now the Lions close out the regular season with three games against 4-5 teams in Rutgers, Nebraska and Maryland. A 10-2 record might still get them an at-large berth into a New Year’s Six bowl game.
“If we’re the team we say we want to be,” Gesicki said, “and we’re the team we say we are, then we’re going to bounce back from it.”
No. 24 Michigan State 27, No. 7 Penn State 24
Penn State`14`0`10`0 — 24
Michigan State`7`7`7`6 — 27
First Quarter
PSU — DaeSean Hamilton 31 pass from Trace McSorley (Tyler Davis kick), 5:40
MSU — Darrell Stewart 7 pass from Brian Lewerke (Matt Coghlin kick), 3:28
PSU — Saeed Blacknall 27 pass from McSorley (Davis kick), 0:42
Second Quarter
MSU — Felton Davis 33 pass from Lewerke (Coghlin kick), 3:54
Third Quarter
MSU — L.J. Scott 3 run (Coghlin kick), 7:25
PSU — Davis 26 field goal, 2:11
PSU — DeAndre Thompkins 70 pass from McSorley (Davis kick), 0:00
Fourth Quarter
MSU — Coghlin 32 field goal, 10:56
MSU — Coghlin 34 field goal, 0:00
Team statistics`PSU`MSU
First downs`22`25
Rushes-yards`21-65`24-74
Passing`401`400
Comp-Att-Int`27-48-3`33-56-1
Return Yards`15`102
Punts-Avg.`4-38.5`6-35.33
Fumbles-Lost`0-0`0-0
Penalties-Yards`7-86`8-87
Time of Possession`25:51`34:09
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — PSU, Saquon Barkley 14-63, Trace McSorley 7-2. MSU, L.J. Scott 14-43, Brian Lewerke 7-25, Gerald Holmes 3-6.
PASSING — PSU, McSorley 26-47-3-381, Barkley 1-1-0-20. MSU, Lewerke 33-56-1-400.
RECEIVING — PSU, Mike Gesicki 8-89, DaeSean Hamilton 7-112, DeAndre Thompkins 4-102, Barkley 3-33, Juwan Johnson 2-27, Saeed Blacknall 1-27, Jonathan Holland 1-7, Irvin Charles 1-4. MSU, Felton Davis 12-181, Darrell Stewart 5-65, Cody White 5-51, Scott 4-9, Hunter Rison 3-52, Matt Sokol 2-15, Holmes 1-15, Matt Dotson 1-12.
MISSED FIELD GOALS — None.
A — 71,605.
