What if?
What if what actually happened had not happened?
1974 vs. Maryland—Jeff Hite sets the Penn State record for most interceptions returned for a touchdown in a single game… And it’s really a good thing the refs saw what actually happened…
Saturday, Nov. 2, 1974, at Beaver Stadium, #10 Penn State hosts the #15 Maryland Terrapins in front of 60,125 fans… It’s a sellout and, at the time, it’s the second largest crowd ever to attend a game in State College… Maryland is ranked for the first time ever in this series and they’re looking to give the Nittany Lions a serious run for their money for the first time in 8 years… The game is being televised regionally by ABC, and many major bowl scouts are on hand for this one, too… Junior Jeff Hite is starting at cornerback for injured captain Jim Bradley, and he will become ABC’s Defensive Player of the Game as he re-writes the “pick-6” section of the Penn State record book… But was Hite’s second interception of the game actually an interception?
We pick up the action late in the 1st quarter… Maryland has the ball in Penn State territory and is looking to score first… Terps QB Bob Avellini is looking for tailback Lou Carter out on the left flat… He finds the cornerback instead… Jeff Hite jumps the route, stepping in front of the intended receiver at the 21, and he is off to the races… 79 yards for the touchdown (then the 4th longest pick-6 return in PSU history)… Penn State leads 7-0…. Avellini later ties the game with a TD pass, and the Nittany Lions respond with 79-yard drive capped by a Tom Shuman 7-yard TD pass to split end Dick Barvinchak… PSU leads again, 14-7…
On the ensuing kick by Penn State, John Reihner lands the ball well short of the 10-yard line and it bounces to about the Maryland 8… Rick Jennings collects the ball instead of the Terps’ preferred return-man Lou Carter… Watching the video, it appears that Jennings tells Carter to “be ready” as they move up the right sideline… As Jennings reaches the 22, he looks behind to his right for Carter who’s at the 20… Jennings clearly pitches towards Carter, but Jeff Hite is suddenly between them at the 21… The pitch hits Hite’s left hand and he somehow gets a grip on the ball and he’s off to the races a second time… 21 yards for the touchdown to put PSU up, 21-7 in the second quarter (Penn State has just scored 2 TDs in 7 seconds of game time)… Hite told media after the game that he knew something was up when Carter lagged behind Jennings and didn’t try to block… The Lions would add a Chris Bahr 44-yard field goal in the 4th quarter, and fend off the Terps for the 24-17 victory and an invitation to the 1975 Cotton Bowl… And stunningly… Jeff Hite is the first Penn Stater with a pair of pick-6’s in a single game… But did the refs and the scorekeeper get it right?
The thing that has always felt odd to folks who have seen the second Hite interception is that it doesn’t feel like an interception… First of all, it’s a legal backwards pass by a kick returner… It appeared as though some newspapers didn’t feel completely comfortable simply labeling it an interception in their scoring summaries; instead calling it an “interception of a lateral”... The Daily Collegian referred to it as “stealing a lateral” or an “interception of an attempted lateral” in its game stories… The New York Times did call it an interception, all the way… Although accurate, it seemed wrong to call it an “interception” since it was not a forward pass (and, yes, Jennings was not credited with a pass attempt in the game stats)… If Hite had dropped the backwards pass and not caught it, it would have been ruled a fumble and not an incomplete pass… In fact, if Hite had never caught the lateralled ball, and instead, picked it up off a bounce or right off the ground or wrestled it away from Jennings, it would, under the rules of the day, have been called a fumble recovery and a dead ball at the spot of the recovery (no advance was permitted by the defense on a kick return/no TD)… Luckily for Hite and Penn State, the ball was caught out of the air, and the referees saw it that way, so the play was correctly allowed to continue to the endzone and was not whistled dead… Otherwise, one of the great Nittany Lion moments would have been erased (remember, video replay review was still 30 years away)… And, for the record, a defensive player’s catch of an opponent’s pass (forward, backward, or lateral) is always ruled an interception (in 1974 and now)…
