STATE COLLEGE, Penn. – It wasn’t as if Minnesota’s football team didn’t try to give him the ball.
Gophers running back Laurence Maroney returned the opening kickoff, carried the ball twice and caught a short pass on Minnesota’s first three plays. But Maroney’s first three touches gained a total of just 7 yards, and then-No. 18 Minnesota was forced to punt.
The rest of the game wasn’t much different.
Penn State’s defense held Maroney to just 48 yards on 16 carries, while Nittany Lions running back Tony Hunt rushed for 114 and two touchdowns and quarterback Michael Robinson ran for 112 more to beat the Gophers 44-14 in front of an announced crowd of 106,604 Saturday at Beaver Stadium.
“It’s probably like it always is – blocking,” Minnesota coach Glen Mason said. “Everybody wants to say, ‘Well, you stopped Maroney.’ You didn’t stop Maroney, you stopped Minnesota’s offense. Just like when he gains a lot of yards, it’s not Maroney, it’s Minnesota’s offense. We try to live by the run and I guess if you don’t run the ball you die by the run.”
Robinson’s running killed the Gophers. Aside from his 175 yards passing, the senior quarterback’s 112 yards rushing was a career high, much of which came on quarterback draws up the middle.
“Really, the whole inside run is my biggest concern at this point,” Mason said. “I don’t think we defended it very well. Typically when that happens like that, (we) probably had major breakdowns in fundamentals.”
On Penn State’s first drive, the same Gophers defense that was largely successful defending the option against Purdue on Sept. 24 gave up a 13-yard touchdown run to Derrick Williams on an option pitch to put the Lions up 7-0 early.
After a 29-yard field goal by freshman Kevin Kelly, Jakari Wallace gave Minnesota excellent field position with a 65-yard kickoff return down to the Penn State 30.
But the Gophers offense sputtered again, and on third-and-nine from the Lions’ 29-yard line, quarterback Bryan Cupito was sacked for a 5-yard loss. A 51-yard field goal attempt by Jason Giannini fell well short.
The Gophers (4-1, 1-1 Big Ten) couldn’t gain a single first down in the first quarter, contrasted by 11 for the Lions (5-0, 2-0 Big Ten).
Penn State ended up with 35 first downs for the game – second-most in Joe Paterno’s 40 years as coach.
“It’s like repetition,” Minnesota wide receiver Ernie Wheelwright said. “Once you get the first down, you’ve got to keep going and get the offense going. We didn’t help the defense at all. We kept going three-and-out and our defense was tired.”
The Gophers almost got the Lions off the field without a score early in the second quarter, but a 2-yard gain by Hunt on fourth-and-one from Minnesota’s 9-yard line enabled Williams to rush for his second touchdown of the game three plays later on a reverse to the left side, giving Penn State a 17-0 lead.
Minnesota finally gained a first down conversion on the ensuing possession and drove the ball to Penn State’s 32 yard line. But the drive was foiled when Wallace fumbled a handoff from Maroney on a reverse and Penn State’s Jay Alford recovered on his own 38.
After a 47-yard field goal by Kelly, the Gophers finally got on the board with 1:43 left in the half on a 48-yard touchdown strike from Cupito to Wheelwright to trail 20-7 at halftime.
Then it got worse.
Penn State scored on four straight possessions to open the second half. Touchdown runs of 5 and 3 yards by Hunt and another field goal by Kelly made it 37-7 at the end of three quarters.
Minnesota finally scored a rushing touchdown with 11:25 left in the game, though it was far too late – and still wasn’t Marone, who was not available for comment after the game.
“By the time it got to the second half, we tried to make adjustments,” tackle Tony Brinkhaus said. “But then we really had to start passing the ball more than we usually do.”
A 2-yard touchdown run by Wallace served only to offset Penn State’s fifth rushing touchdown moments later, a 10-yard run by Rodney Kinlaw.
“They are a better team than I gave them credit for,” Cupito said. “I thought we could come in here and control the game, and their defense played the best I’ve seen in two years against us. They just shut down the run completely.”