Quickie Gamer - Penn State 34, Northwestern 13
Saturday’s game was a tale of two quarterbacks for Northwestern. While Mike Kafka carried the Wildcats, Dan Persa dropped the ball.
In the first half Kafka went 14-for-18 for 128 yards while leading the Cats to three scores. After Kafka left the game with 8:15 left in the second half, NU wouldn’t score again. Persa, who had only thrown two passes all season, struggled getting the ball to his wide receivers. The sophomore from Bethlehem, Pa., was 14-for-23 for 115 yards through the air. Primarily a running threat, Persa ran 14 times for 69 yards, but four sacks dropped his rushing total to 42 yards.
Even with the Cats offense sputtering, NU’s defense kept the game close. Going into the fourth quarter the score was knotted up at 13. After that it was all Penn State. The Nittany Lions racked up 197 yards of offense and 21 points in the final period, more than they had in the first half. Of those 197 yards, 122 came on two plays—a 53 yard touchdown pass from quarterback Daryll Clark to Derek Moye and a 69 yard touchdown run by Evan Royster.
“For three quarters we gave ourselves an opportunity to compete and win,” coach Pat Fitzgerald said. “But in the last 15 minutes we gave up too many big plays and we didn’t move the football. So at that point there weren’t a whole lot of answers besides us not executing and doing the things we need to do coaching and playing wise.”
