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MINNEAPOLIS (Ticker) -- The 1-2 punch of Laurence Maroney and Marion Barber III was too much for Penn State.
Maroney and Barber each scored a rushing touchdown and combined for over 230 yards as No. 19 Minnesota posted a 16-7 victory over Big Ten Conference rival Penn State.
Minnesota (5-0, 2-0 Big Ten) jumped out to a 10-0 lead after the first quarter and outrushed the Nittany Lions, 288-21, to defeat Penn State (2-3, 0-2) for the fourth consecutive time.
"I am ecstatic that we are 2-0 in the Big Ten and 5-0 overall. This was a hard-fought win over a good Penn State team," Minnesota coach Glen Mason said. "This was the best defense we have played against in a long time. They were stingy against the run and didn't give us a lot of big plays like we have been accustomed to."
The Golden Gophers also improved to 5-0 last season with a 20-14 victory in Happy Valley.
Maroney, who rushed for 144 yards on 25 carries, scored on a one-yard run with 39 seconds to play in the first quarter and Barber added a 19-yard TD run with 9:16 left in the third to extend the Minnesota lead to 16-0. Barber rushed for 88 yards on 21 carries.
Penn State got its only score of the game with just over one minute left in the third quarter when Zack Mills connected with Isaac Smolko for a six-yard TD pass. Mills finished 24-for-46 for 250 yards and was intercepted once.
"They played us to stop the run, so we had to rely on the pass," Penn State coach Joe Paterno said. "I thought Mills played a heck of a football game."
"We didn't make the plays we needed to. It's the same old story, we just have to execute better," Mills said. "We wanted to run the ball, control the ball and keep their offense off the field, but we didn't do that. I don't know how many yards we had rushing but it was under 50. It's just mind-boggling."
Lloyd Rhys opened the scoring with a 21-yard field goal for Minnesota, which travels to "The Big House" to take on No. 18 Michigan in a key Big Ten showdown next week.
The Wolverines rallied from a 21-point fourth-quarter deficit for a 38-35 victory over the Golden Gophers last season, ruining Minnesota's 6-0 start.
"I don't view this as a revenge game for our team. They didn't do anything to us last year that would allow us to call it that," Mason said. "We are going to be going up against a really good football team. Who in the country has better skill people than Michigan? They start a freshman quarterback (Chad Henne), but he was the most sought-after quarterback in the nation."
Earlier in the day, the Minnesota Twins' baseball game was the Cleveland Indians was suspended with the teams tied in the 11th inning so the maintenance crew could get the Metrodome field ready for the football game.
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