Saturday's Big Ten: No. 7 Penn State gets five takeaways, pulls away from Illinois
Champaign, Ill. — Penn State coach James Franklin was fine without scoring a bunch of style points on its first road trip of the season.
Cam Miller, Abdul Carter, Daequan Dixon and Johnny Hardy had interceptions and No. 7 Penn State took advantage of five turnovers by Illinois to beat the Illini, 30-13, Saturday.
The Nittany Lions (3-0, 1-0 Big Ten) overcame a subpar effort by Drew Allar, who completed just 16 of 33 passes for 208 yards, and the offense. The second-year quarterback connected on 78% of his passes in his first two games.
Allar’s struggles didn’t concern Penn State coach James Franklin.
“This was a beautiful win. Anytime you can win on the road in the Big Ten, especially in an 11 o’clock game in front of big crowd, it’s pretty,” Franklin said. “We grinded it out, especially in the first half. We didn’t take control then, but we didn’t lose control.”
Luke Altmyer was intercepted four times before he was benched, and running back Josh McCray lost a fumble for Illinois (1-2, 0-1), which has lost two straight.
“We held them to 62 yards rushing. That shouldn’t be overlooked,” Franklin said. “We also won the third-down game and the field position game."
Altmyer completed 15 of 28 passes for 163 yards. John Paddock relieved and was 10 of 16 for 129 yards and a touchdown, a 19-yard pass in the fourth quarter to Malik Elzy.
It appears Altmyer’s starting job is safe despite his troubles Saturday.
“We didn’t give Luke a good enough game plan to be successful,” said Illinois coach Bret Bielema. “What I didn’t like were his early down interceptions, especially on our first drive of the second half.”
Penn State took the ball away three times in the first half, but had trouble getting into the end zone, settling for a 16-7 lead on three field goals by Alex Felkins and a 4-yard touchdown run by Kaytron Allen.
Illinois closed the gap to 13-7 on a touchdown run by Reggie Love, who bulled his way into the end zone from five yards out. Love’s TD was set up by a blocked field goal by Jer’Zhan Newton.
Franklin was happy with his offensive line, which had its hands full with the All-American Newton, who was involved in six tackles.
“We wanted to block Jer’Zhan, and we did,” he said.
After a three-and-out by Penn State to start the second half, Altmyer connected with Isaiah Williams on a 32-yard pass to the Nittany Lions 25. But Dixon picked off an Altmeyer pass on the next play.
“I still like this football team,” Bielema said. “Our theme this week was to identify, adjust and excel, and we didn’t do that against a good team. Next week is another opportunity to get better. We’ve still got nine games left.”
Penn State pulled away in the second half, scoring on a halfback pass from 11 yards out from Trey Potts to Tyler Warren and Nick Singleton's 16-yard run that made it 30-7 early in the fourth quarter.
More Big Ten
▶ (At) No. 5 Ohio State 63, Western Kentucky 10: Kyle McCord threw for three touchdowns and 318 yards and Ohio State used a 35-point second quarter to rout Western Kentucky.
McCord’s 75-yard TD pass to Marvin Harrison Jr. on the first play from scrimmage after Western Kentucky had pulled to within four points gave the Buckeyes (3-0) a 21-10 lead and Chip Trayanum ran for a 40-yard score on the first play of their next series to make it 28-10.
The last time OSU scored five TDs in a quarter was Sept. 21, 2013, vs. Florida A&M.
TreVeyon Henderson ran for 88 yards and his touchdowns of 21 and 10 yards put the Buckeyes ahead 14-3 nearly five minutes into the second quarter against the Hilltoppers (2-1), but Austin Reed tossed a 2-yard TD to Malachi Corley to pull to within 14-10 before the Ohio State onslaught.
Harrison had four of his five catches and 118 of his 126 yards in the first half.
▶ (At) No. 20 North Carolina 31, Minnesota 13: Drake Maye threw for a season-high 414 yards to go with two touchdowns, Nate McCollum flirted with a single-game UNC receiving record and North Carolina pushed past Minnesota.
Maye overcame two interceptions and ultimately provided the only reliable source of offense for the Tar Heels (3-0), who were unable to run the ball against one of nation's top defenses.
McCollum, in his first year at UNC after transferring from Georgia Tech, had missed the season opener with an injury and had just one catch in his debut last week. But he was the clear top target on Saturday, going for 15 catches and 165 yards with a 46-yard contested scoring catch in the first quarter. He ended up falling one catch shy of tying the Tar Heels' single-game record.
Omarion Hampton and British Brooks each ran for short TDs, with Brooks' 1-yard punch-in clinching this one by pushing UNC to a 31-13 lead at the 5-minute mark of the fourth quarter.
Darius Taylor ran for 138 yards and a touchdown shortly before halftime to lead Minnesota (2-1), but the Gophers generated little else beyond the dynamic running from the true freshman. Athan Kaliakmanis threw for just 133 yards on 11-for-29 passing, and that played a big role in Minnesota converting just 3 of 12 third downs.
▶ (At) No. 21 Duke 38, Northwestern 14: Riley Leonard ran for two touchdowns and threw for 219 yards to lead Duke over Northwestern.
Jordan Waters also ran for two touchdowns and Jalon Calhoun caught five passes for 112 yards as the Blue Devils (3–0, 1–0 ACC) opened the season with three straight wins for the second year in a row under coach Mike Elko.
Leonard rushed for 97 yards and completed 15 of 20 passes in just over three quarters.
Northwestern quarterback Ben Bryant was 17-for-34 for 123 yards with a touchdown and an interception. The Wildcats (1-2, 0-1 Big Ten) had 267 yards of total offense, with 90 of those in the fourth quarter.
The Blue Devils put together 80- and 94-yard touchdown drives in the third quarter, both ending on Leonard’s short runs. Duke, which didn't punted until the fourth quarter, had 268 rushing yards.
▶ (At) Rutgers 35, Virginia Tech 16: Kyle Monangai ran for 143 yards and three touchdowns, leading Rutgers over Virginia Tech.
Gavin Wimsatt continued his trajectory as a dual-threat quarterback for Rutgers, running for a career-high 87 yards to help the Scarlet Knights get off to a 3-0 start for the third straight season. The last time Rutgers started three consecutive seasons with three straight wins was from 1959 to 1961.
The win snapped a 12-game losing streak against Virginia Tech (1-2). The teams met annually between 1992 and 2003 when they were members of the Big East Conference.
Monangai scored on runs of 19, 55 and 12 yards. Wimsatt ran for a 34-yard score and hit Christian Dremel on a 4-yard TD. He completed 7 of 16 passes for 46 yards.
Named as the starting quarterback after splitting time his first two seasons at Rutgers, Wimsatt has accumulated 407 yards passing and 148 yards rushing and has yet to throw an interception.
Virginia Tech closed to within 21-16 early in the fourth quarter, but Rutgers responded with two touchdowns, both courtesy of Monangai.
▶ Louisville 21, Indiana 14: Jamari Thrash caught an 85-yard touchdown pass and Jawhar Jordan added a 25-yard scoring run in the first half, and Louisville made a late goal-line stand to preserve a victory over Indiana.
The Cardinals are 3-0 for the first time since 2016 after first-year coach Jeff Brohm earned his first win at Lucas Oil Stadium. He lost to Louisville, his alma mater, in his debut as Purdue's head coach and closed out his Boilermakers tenure with a loss Michigan in the Big Ten championship game.
But the Cardinals struggled to put this one away after taking a 21-0 halftime lead before Hoosiers coach Tom Allen changed the script.
Indiana started the second half by recovering an onside kick. Three plays later, new starting quarterback Tayven Jackson hooked up with Jaylin Lucas on a 30-yard TD pass — the first of Jackson's college career — to make it 21-7.
A failed fourth-down try stopped Indiana’s next possession but after the Hoosiers' defense forced a three-and-out, Jackson deftly engineered a 97-yard drive, capping it with a 2-yard scoring run from Josh Henderson to cut the deficit to 21-14 with about one minute left in the third quarter.
Then, with less than five minutes to play, the Hoosiers (1-2) had fourth-and-goal from 18 inches away. Louisville linebacker Stanquan Clark stuffed Henderson in the backfield with 4:38 to play and the Cardinals ran out the clock.
▶ (At) Wisconsin 35, Georgia Southern 14: Tanner Mordecai ran for two touchdowns and Braelon Allen added two more for Wisconsin.
Mordecai finished 19 of 30 for 236 passing yards. He had touchdown runs of 1 and 18 yards for Wisconsin (2-1) in its first meeting against the Eagles. Mordecai, a SMU transfer, also had seven carries for 36 yards and two touchdowns.
Allen finished with 12 carries for 94 yards and two scores. Chez Mellusi had 15 carries for 61 yards and one touchdown for Wisconsin.
Tulsa transfer Davis Brin threw two touchdowns for Georgia Southern (2-1). Brin was 33 of 52 for 383 yards with two touchdowns and five interceptions through three-plus quarters. Brin fumbled on a snap in the fourth quarter to give the Eagles their sixth turnover of the game.