We Are Defense

Upon impact, Rubin punched the ball out of Pryor's grasp with his left fist, setting off a wild scramble that called to mind a mob of children chasing a greased pig at the county fair. The ball was touched by half a dozen players before it was covered by the Nittany Lions' rising star outside linebacker, Navorro Bowman, at the Buckeyes' 38.

That turnover, the game's first, set up Penn State's winning touchdown, scored seven plays later by backup quarterback Pat Devlin on a one-yard sneak. Devlin, a sophomore, was in the game because Clark had sustained a mild concussion while fighting for extra yards on a run late in the third quarter.

A product of Ursuline High in Youngstown, Ohio, Clark had intended to remind Buckeyes fans that not all of the state's best players end up in Columbus. But the maestro of the Spread HD, which had produced 45.4 points per game before Saturday, found the going much harder in the Horseshoe. The Nittany Lions' offense had to grind for every one of its 281 total yards--201 below its average. "Not too pretty!" shouted Penn State senior center A.Q. Shipley, throwing his arm around receiver Deon Butler after the game. "Win's a win, baby!" Butler hollered back.

Before his early exit, Clark threw for all of 121 yards; senior wideouts Butler, Jordan Norwood and Derrick Williams combined for only 28 receiving yards. On this night it was Penn State's no-name defense that supplied the heroes. In addition to Rubin, who added 11 tackles to his Strip Heard 'Round the College Football World, there was Bowman, a sophomore who had 10 tackles, his fifth double-digit total of the season. Fellow sophomore Aaron Maybin, a defensive end, nailed down his 11th sack of the season when he dropped Pryor for a nine-yard loss near the end of the first half.

Finally, it was senior cornerback Lydell Sargeant's last-minute, end-zone interception that ensured Penn State's first win in the 'Shoe since the Carter administration.

There are 33 milk shakes on the menu at the Eat'n Park diner in Jeannette, Pa., where Pryor played high school football. Every time Bradley made the 122-mile journey from State College to Jeannette while recruiting Pryor, he would drop in and order a shake. "Sometimes," he says, "I'd get one on the way home too." The shakes are listed in alphabetical order. By the time Pryor committed to the Buckeyes, says Bradley, "I was up to strawberry banana."

Though Pryor ultimately dubbed State College too "country" for his taste, the quarterback and the coordinator remain friendly. Sitting in his office four days before the game, Bradley could only shake his head at a Pryor highlight from the previous week: the freshman stiff-arming a Michigan State cornerback on an 11-yard run for a first down. "He doesn't run like a guy who's 6' 6", 235," said Bradley, "but he is."

Determined to prevent Pryor from attacking the corner, where he's most dangerous, Bradley gave his defenders specific instructions. They were told to "stay home" and keep Pryor inside their "upfield shoulder" even if it took some of the teeth out of Penn State's pass rush. "We were nervous about going after him," Bradley acknowledges. "He's such a great scrambler. We wanted him to have to throw the ball."

And so Pryor did, completing 16 of his 25 passes (the most he's thrown in his six starts) for 226 yards. The success of Bradley's plan could be measured in Pryor's rushing numbers--nine carries for six yards--and in that fateful fumble.

The reversal of fortune deflated Pryor, even as it awakened the Nittany Lions' dormant running attack. Sophomore tailback Evan Royster picked up 43 of his game-high 77 yards on nine fourth-quarter carries. As Royster tore off 10- and nine-yard chunks of real estate on successive plays, Pryor's scarlet-skullcapped head dropped lower and lower on the bench. When Pryor finally got back on the field with 67 seconds to play and no timeouts, he drove the Buckeyes 37 yards. With a half minute to play, he rolled right and let go a desperation heave that guaranteed that Ohio State will not return to the BCS title game for a third straight year.