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As he laid on the Beaver Stadium grass last month, the first thought that went through Andrew Nelson’s mind wasn’t about the severity of his injury.
No, Nelson was upset that his knee injury in the final minute of the first half against Buffalo required a 10-second run-off. One that kept the Nittany Lions from getting a final snap for a field goal try.
“The most frustrating thing is that you just want to be out there for your team,” Nelson said Saturday. “You want to be out there. You want to get the five best guys out there so that you can give your team the best possible chance of winning.
“So going down, especially an opportunity like that where you had an opportunity to score? It was definitely a little frustrating, to say the least.”
Now the sophomore from Hershey has a chance to make up for some lost time. Nelson was one of a handful of starters who returned for the Lions’ 29-7 win over Indiana.
“I thought it was significant getting those guys back, especially Andrew Nelson up front,” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “He’s a leader for us. He plays at a really high level. I felt like he was practicing and playing at an extremely high level before he got hurt, so having him back was big.”
Nelson’s presence at right tackle gave the Lions a bit of a boost in pass protection against the Hoosiers, who frequently stacked the box on defense, daring Penn State to throw long to beat them.
The issue, of course, was giving Christian Hackenberg enough time for his wideouts to actually run deep or even intermediate routes. The quarterback never had that luxury in the 10-sack massacre against Temple in the season-opener.
Against Indiana, Hackenberg went down four times, with left tackle Paris Palmer still a work in progress at left tackle, getting beaten a few times one-on-one. But Hackenberg did manage to hit Brandon Polk and DaeSean Hamilton for matching 39-yard touchdowns.
Though the line was far from perfect, there was one encouraging sign.
Franklin noted multiple times that the unit seemed to collapse mentally upon surrendering its first sack in the loss to the Owls.
That meltdown was not repeated on Saturday.
“It just shows the maturity of this team,” Hackenberg said. “It’s one of those things where, looking back earlier in the season, some of those times we really just went down in the dumps.
“Now you see it’s happened a couple times in the last couple of games and we’ve just been able to bounce back.”
Recruiting corner
Franklin admitted last month that five straight home games was going to be pretty taxing on large sections of the fanbase, particularly people who had to drive longer than two hours to get to the game every week.
It hasn’t fazed Connor McGovern.
The Lake-Lehman senior center and Penn State verbal commitment was back at Beaver Stadium again on Saturday. For the fifth straight week.
No other member of the Lions’ 2016 recruiting class — which has sat at 20 players since the start of the season — has come close to matching that streak.
Penn State returned the favor Friday night as Franklin and offensive line coach Herb Hand made a trip to the Back Mountain to see McGovern and the Black Knights steamroll GAR to remain unbeaten.
Franklin wasn’t able to talk to McGovern in person during this stretch on the recruiting calendar, but obviously their presence was well noted.
“It just felt like a normal game,” McGovern said Friday night. “Obviously because of NCAA rules I can’t talk to him. But it was nice to come out and dominate in front of him.”
McGovern is on track to graduate in December and enroll at Penn State a semester early in January. He will play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio right before then on Jan. 9.
Up next
It’s primetime. It’s the Horseshoe. It’s the defending national champions.
It’s Penn State-Ohio State.
The Buckeyes remain the nation’s No. 1 team in the polls, having won 19 straight games including the inaugural College Football Playoff. Ohio State is a perfect 26-0 against Big Ten teams during the regular season since Urban Meyer took over the program in 2012 and 44-3 overall.
Still, the Bucks haven’t been as dominant as expected this season, trailing at halftime against Virginia Tech and Indiana. Saturday, they found themselves tied 21-21 with a hapless Maryland team who fired their coach the next day.
It may be the biggest game of the year for the Lions — kickoff is set for 8 p.m. Saturday on ABC — but Franklin wasn’t ready to start obsessing over it in the aftermath of the Indiana win.
“I want to enjoy today. I want to have three hours of sanity,” Franklin said. “And then tomorrow we’ll start talking about our next opponent.”
