Los Angeles, CA – No. 4 Penn State overcame a 14-point deficit and tight end Tyler Warren caught 17 passes for 224 yards and a touchdown to lead the Nittany Lions to a 33-30 overtime win over USC on Saturday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
USC kicker Michael Lantz missed a 45-yard field goal attempt on the Trojans first possession of overtime. Penn State got down to the 19-yard line where kicker Ryan Barker hit a 36-yard field goal to defeat the Trojans and remain unbeaten at 6-0.
“Hard-fought game, you know, just a really difficult loss,” USC coach Lincoln Riley said. “There’s really no way to sugarcoat that. Our guys fought their ass off from beginning to end. As a coach, you can’t ask for anything more than the effort that our guys put on the field. Two good football teams going at it. Came down to the last play, and it hurts to not be able to get this done.”
After a 34-yard field goal from Baker, USC running back Quinten Joyner faked a reverse handoff and raced upfield for a 75-yard touchdown. The Trojans took a 7-3 lead in the first quarter.
USC opened the second quarter with a 7-play, 89-yard drive that was capped by a Miller Moss 9-yard touchdown pass to Joyner. Lantz added a couple field goals to give USC a 20-6 lead at halftime. Penn State didn’t score a touchdown in the first half.
Penn State cut the USC lead 20-13 with a 32-yard touchdown catch from Warren in the third quarter, The Nittany Lions got the ball back and drove 90 yards down the field to tie it 20-20 on Kaytron Allen’s 1-yard touchdown run with 4:42 left in the third quarter.
Lantz added a 39-yard field goal to give USC a 23-20 lead at the end of the third quarter. Penn State hit a field goal to tie it at 23 in the 4th quarter. USC took back the lead 30-23 on a Kyron Hudson 5-yard touchdown catch with 4:54 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Nicholas Singleton caught a 14-yard touchdown pass to tie it once again, 30-30, in the fourth quarter. The Nittany Lions and the Trojans traded interceptions at the end of the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime.
“It’s going to make for a great ride home. It’s going to make for a great bye week,” Penn State coach James Franklin. “There’s a ton of things that I think we’re going to be able to learn from this game, and we need to learn from this game, because we’re far from perfect. We’re also 6-0 and 1-0 this week, and we’re going to take it and run.”
USC will look to bounce back from the loss when they travel to play Maryland on Saturday, Oct. 19.
“They all hurt. This one especially was excruciating, just in the manner that it happened,” Moss said. “I think the flip side of that is that we’ve got a really good locker room filled with really great people and really great coaches that’s going to continue to stay together and go on and run this back half of the season. And that’s the No. 4 team in the country. So what does that make us?”
