What if?
What if something else had happened?
2016 Penn State vs. Ohio State—What if the “Whiteout Block Six” itself was blocked from happening? There was, in fact, a moment in the game where Penn State almost made a history-altering play that would have erased the legendary blocked kick & return and quite possibly also erased James Franklin’s lone win over the Buckeyes…
Saturday, October 22, 2016… Unranked Penn State plays host to #2 Ohio State in the Whiteout at Beaver Stadium… A crowd of over 107 thousand and a primetime audience on ABC will witness the unthinkable… A 4-2 Nittany Lion team just 28 days removed from a brutal beatdown at Michigan will somehow turn the tables on the Buckeyes and begin a march to the most unexpected Big Ten Championship in over two decades…
We pick up the game on 3rd and 7 for Ohio State just short of the Penn State 28 with 4:45 to go in the game… The Buckeyes are leading 21-17… From the shotgun, Quarterback JT Barrett changes the play at the line of scrimmage when someone on the OSU sideline spots a potential golden one-on-one opportunity for wide receiver Terry McLaurin… The Buckeyes want McLaurin to run a post pattern against man-to-man coverage, and a second receiver will set a screen near the line for Penn State defensive back John Reid leaving McLaurin wide open… Barrett barely gets this play off in time, taking the snap at 1 second on the play clock… He then throws a lofted pass over the middle, just barely out of the reach of McLaurin and that of Reid who had avoided the earlier planned collision and maintained the strong man-coverage… Incomplete pass and on comes the field goal unit for its date with destiny… But…
What if Reid had somehow made that interception? The ball was in and out of his hands inside the PSU 5-yard line… Certainly, the stadium would have gone insane if he had somehow latched onto the ball right in front of the raucous student section… The Nittany Lions would have had the ball inside their own 5 with about 4:39 to play; assuming of course, that Reid is brought down in the field of play which was very probable… Even if Penn State gets the benefit of a touchback on the INT, the ball comes out to the 20, and it’s still an 80-yard drive with the Lions down 4…
Could Trace McSorley have driven Penn State 80 or 95 yards to a last-second victory as he would a year later in Iowa? Obviously, the Reid interception would have kept the Buckeyes from attempting the unnecessarily rushed (OSU had 2 timeouts left) career long 45-yard field goal try by Tyler Durbin… So, there would have been no blocked kick by Marcus Allen and no breathless 60-yard return by Grant Haley for the touchdown with the holder in hot pursuit… In other words, one of the greatest plays in PSU history would never have taken place and the Lions would be banking on Trace and Saquon for a nail-biting march to the finish… Luckily, we’ll never know because John Reid didn’t change the course of history…
What really might have changed the course of this particular piece of game history was clock management… Looking back at the moments leading up to the ill-fated field goal attempt, it feels like Ohio State coach Urban Meyer was fooled by the game clock being stopped after the incomplete pass while the play clock quickly reset to 40 and began running while Reid was still coming back from endzone after the play… The OSU offense was still trading places with the kick unit at 18 seconds on the play clock… Durbin and the holder were not set until 4 seconds remained… The hurried snap came at about 2 seconds… A simple timeout would likely have erased what was coming next… The iconic “Block Six”, and with it, Penn State’s 24-21 win over the Buckeyes… Luckily, a timeout didn’t change the course of history either…
