Down 28-7 in the second quarter, the Nittany Lions showed no quit. They come storming back behind quarterback Trace McSorley. They win the Big Ten outright for the first time since 1994, and the best story in college football this season keeps getting better.
"We know we're a second half team and we know I think we were averaging 27 or 28 points in the second half and the defense is averaging only like six points, six points against us," junior linebacker Jason Cabinda said. "So I mean, we knew what we were going to do and when we came in the locker room, we were saying it, 'second half. This is our game. This is what we do. Second half,' and to come out, get that three and out, get that score, it was just like, I mean, it was magical, it really was."
"Shows that this team has no quit," Saquon Barkley told WNEP Sports Director Jim Coles after the game. "We always going to fight until the end and we believe in each other and we're confident that no matter what the scoreboard is, that we can still comeback and win the game. Obviously we didn't play how we wanted to in the first half, but first half's the first half and it's zero-zero for us to come back out and we started executing, started making plays and started playing how we wanted to play."
"We just dig in," McSorley said. "This team has a ton of heart, never have any quit in us and when things started going against us, a lot of teams get their back against the wall. They might, I don't know if I want to say call uncle or give up, but that's not what this team does. You know, we fight harder when we're down. We just ride that momentum that we were able to gain."
"If there's no struggle, there's no progress," Mike Gesicki said after the win. "I think that that kind of, you know, goes a long not only with myself, but with this team. Since I've been here there's been, obviously been some downs and some struggles and some adversity. But without that, I mean you can't grow and you can't improve. So I wouldn't change anything that's happened in the past. I think that it's made our team and myself better because of it and this big ten championship kind of speaks volumes to all that adversity and how we've handled it and how we've learned from it."
And so the beat goes on. Nine straight wins for the Nittany Lions, a major bowl big coming up and one of the best stories in many, many seasons is just going on chapter by chapter.