Our Honor Defend

This is going to be an odd week for me, and posting will be light because of it.  I’ll be in Columbus, Ohio on Thursday and, if my friends are not lying to me, I should be hanging out in a Columbus bar drinking with Pete Johnson.  If they are lying to me, I will kill them because you cannot just tell me that you’ve been hanging out at the same bar with Pete Johnson and not have me get excited ¹.  In the meantime, I’ll be working overtime to make sure I’m caught up.  I said I want to do a YouTube for every opponent on Ohio State’s schedule, but missed the past two weeks.  I was going to do the 1989 Minnesota game, but the audio tracks weren’t rendering.  I also just got lazy for New Mexico State².  We’re back on track this week.  As Ohio State gets ready to head to Happy Valley, we’ll take a look at Ohio State’s first visit to Happy Valley, which resulted in a 12-7 win for the visitors.

In an earlier post looking back at the 1975 game between these two — the first win for Ohio State in the series, I made reference to just how unfortunately one-sided this series was for Ohio State.  The losses in 1912, 1956, 1963 and 1964 were sufficiently hard to swallow.  Worse yet, they were all at home.  When the Nitts and the Buckeyes renewed the series in 1975, it came with the stipulation that the Buckeyes would pay a visit to Beaver Stadium the year after.  This year, 1976, was a transition for Ohio State.  Woody’s vaunted recruiting class of 1972 had all graduated.  Gone were 3 year starter Cornelius Greene and 4 year starter, 2 time Heisman winner Archie Griffin, dependable mainstay Brian Baschnagel and, most importantly, Brian Baschnagel’s Buckstache.  Their replacements were a couple of players unlikely to resonate among Buckeye fans who followed the team in the years earlier.  Rod Gerald, a sophomore, took over at QB for the senior Corny Greene while Jeff Logan, Griffin’s understudy, had the unenviable task of having to follow one of the greatest to play the game.  Gerald and Logan were the names of interests considering the positions they were filling, but Ohio State’s offensive line was in transition as well.  Only left tackle Chris Ward and right guard Bill Lukens returned from the 1975 team.  All in all, the Buckeyes returned only one other starter from the 1975 team: the rolling boulder of butcher knives himself, Pete Johnson. After a season-opening demolition of Michigan State, a game in which Jeff Logan scored 3 TDs, a very green Ohio State team had to go on the road into a then-record Beaver Stadium crowd of 62,503 to play Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions.

Everyone in the stadium knew what Ohio State was going to want to do.  With a very green team and an inclination to treat the forward pass as high tech sorcery, the Buckeyes were going to feed the ball to the dependable senior fullback and walking nightmare Pete Johnson in hopes of moving the chains.  Everyone in the stadium, including Joe Paterno and staff, were wrong.  Granted, there was nothing going for Ohio State’s offense in the first quarter, and thus few opportunities to feed the big man.  Nevertheless, Johnson didn’t get his first carry until midway through the second quarter.  Instead, Woody Hayes put the ball in the hands of the new faces Gerald and Logan in hopes that they would be baptized by fire.  It took awhile, but an inopportune interception of a John Andress pass for Micky Shuler by Archie’s younger brother, Ray, set up a 9 play, 82 yard touchdown march that occupied all of 3:40 because of a huge gain by Jeff Logan.  It was capped off by a power play on the keeper for Gerald and a 6-0 Ohio State lead.  Penn State tried to respond in the waning moments of the second quarter, but a fumble in Ohio State’s red zone sealed  the 6-0 lead for Ohio State at intermission.  Better yet, the Buckeyes were to begin the second half with the ball, and momentum.

There’s two ways of looking at this game and why Penn State lost.  If you’re a Penn State fan, you undeniably left points on the field.  2 turnovers in Ohio State’s red zone were critical buzzkills for the Beaver Stadium faithful.  John Andress struggled this young season, but was having success throwing the ball against Ohio State’s secondary.  Penn State’s offensive line was admirably holding up Ohio State’s front 5 of Bob Brudzinski, Nick Buonamici, Aaron Brown, Eddie Beamon and Kelton Dansler.  Further, the Buckeyes took awhile to get going on offense and it’s quite conceivable that Penn State could’ve put Ohio State in a 14-0 hole and force the new kids on Ohio State’s offense to play catch-up.  Important as those turnovers were, I feel Penn State lost this game in the 3rd quarter.  Penn State ran 4 plays in the 3rd quarter.  After Ohio State consumed the first 8 minutes and 23 seconds of the third quarter on a drive that ended in a missed FG, Penn State took over at their own 20.  Matt Suhey, freshman fullback for Penn State, got a first down on the first carry.  Penn State punted 3 plays later.  Ohio State ran out the rest of the third quarter, ultimately ending their drive with yet another missed FG a few minutes into the 4th quarter.

This missed FG was critical as Penn State’s return man for the short field goal inadvertently dropped his knee on the 3 yard line trying to return the missed kick.  Penn State went 3 and out, and punted.  Ohio State, for their efforts, had excellent field position.  A couple minutes later, seldom used walk-on honor roll student Bob Hyatt scored the game’s second touchdown on an option left.  Penn State was able to respond by finally finding the end zone to cut the lead to 12-7, but Penn State had the misfortune of having to kick back to the ball control offense from hell.  Jeff Logan absolutely dashed Penn State’s run defense this game.  He didn’t have the 3 TD effort he had against Sparty the week earlier, but the 25 carry 160 yard performance was the game’s best.  Jeff Logan moving the chains with relative ease allowed Pete Johnson to pick up the 3rd and 1s in the second half.  Rod Gerald’s legerdemain with the ball helped as well.  Penn State kicked off after their TD drive with 6 minutes left and all of their timeouts.  By time they got the ball back, they had no timeouts and only 1 minute and 40 seconds left to work with.  John Andress threw an interception to end the game.

The game is below, if you’re interested.

Miscellany

• This was in the heyday of the tear-aways.  The reason Bob Hyatt scored the TD was because starter Jim Harrell was having to get his tear-away replaced.
• On that note: no tear-away can contain Jeff Logan.  Just watch, you’ll see.  You’ll see.
• Woody Hayes imposed a week-long ban on himself talking to the press before this game.  He naturally lifted it to gloat a bit.
• In doing so, Woody did not mince words when expressing his remorse for losing Matt Suhey to Penn State.  Suhey was the object of a recruiting battle between Joe Paterno and Woody Hayes.  Hayes explicitly told Suhey that he wanted him to be the post-Pete Johnson fullback.  He would’ve been a good one.
• Joe Paterno is legendary for the second (maybe third? Hell if I know) generation Nittany Lions he has.  Presently, three Nittany Lions that played in this game have sons (that I could identify) that will play against Ohio State on Saturday.  Micky Shuler, TE in the 1976 game, has a son who is also a tight end.  Matt Suhey’s son, Joe, also plays for the Nitts right now.  Rich Mauti, a split end in this game, has two sons on the Penn State roster at the moment.
• Rather than shake hands with Paterno, Woody ran right for an Ohio State fan (family member?) at the tunnel and immediately left for the locker room.  I’m a bit busy, so I didn’t watch Joe Paterno’s interview after the game.  I think Paterno may have been asked a question about it.
• Penn State’s snap count on offense was — and I’m not making this up — “Ready, set, GO!”

1. I ain’t playing with ya, Ben.  You’re on notice. [↩]
2. I thought about uploading the San Jose State game from 2002. [↩]