What if?
What if what happened hadn’t actually happened?
1974 vs. Maryland—Jeff Hite set the Penn State record for most interceptions returned for a touchdown in a single game… And it’s really a good thing he did…
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 watch 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 should he have?
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 in PSU history)… Penn State leads 7-0…. Avellini 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 one 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 pitches towards Carter, but Jeff Hite is suddenly between them at the 21… The pitch hits Hite’s left hand and he somehow gets 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 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 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 backwards pass… Some newspapers felt the need to label it an “interception of a lateral” and not simply an interception... The Daily Collegian referred to it as “stealing a lateral” or “interception of an attempted lateral”… The New York Times called it an interception, all the way… But it seemed wrong to call it an “interception” since it was not a forward pass… If Hite had dropped the backwards pass and not caught it, it would have been called 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, it would, under the rules of the day, been called a fumble and a dead ball at the spot of the recovery (no advance permitted by the defense/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 allowed to continue to the endzone… Otherwise, a great Nittany Lions moment would have been lost… And, for the record, a defensive catch of an opponent’s pass (forward, backward, or lateral) is always ruled an interception (in 1974 and now)…
