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Special teams comes up big early, but ultimately lets Penn State down

"Special teams played a huge part," coach James Franklin said. "But once again, blocked punts. You look statistically, you get a blocked punt against you, you're going to have a hard time being successful, kind of like turnovers."

Penn State running back Saquon Barkley, right, cuts up field to score a touchdown against Ohio State.
Penn State running back Saquon Barkley, right, cuts up field to score a touchdown against Ohio State.Read moreJAY LAPRETE

COLUMBUS, Ohio — For coach James Franklin, the real story of Penn State's 39-38 loss to Ohio State Saturday was the Nittany Lions' special teams.

On the bright side, Saquon Barkley returned the game's opening kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown, and Koa Farmer followed with a 60-yard return later that led to a touchdown.

On the other side, however, with just less than 12 minutes left in the game, the Buckeyes blocked Blake Gillikin's punt to take over at their own 41. They went on to score a touchdown less than a minute later, and the momentum of the game changed.

"That was big for them," said defensive end Shareef Miller, the former George Washington High School star. "That swung the whole momentum of the game."

"Special teams played a huge part," Franklin said. "But once again, blocked punts. You look statistically, you get a blocked punt against you, you're going to have a hard time being successful, kind of like turnovers."

Penn State safety Marcus Allen said, despite the woes in this game, the Lions are bound to be successful if they can shore up their special teams.

"Our special teams are really, really good," Allen said. "We put in all the work and put in extra work, so that's why it hurts. … But it's just something that we're going to have to take, and we have to take it with a grain of salt and just move on."

Franklin said it was a mistake to let his team's gaudy special teams statistics early in the game overshadow the issues the Lions had on that key blocked punt.

Tyler Davis kicked off seven times without incident, and Gillikin averaged 42.6 yards on five punts.

But …

"You look at the yards \[on the returns\], and the \[final stats\] don't make any sense," Franklin said. "Well, we had a kickoff return for a touchdown, and we had another kickoff return for a huge play, so the stats kind of didn't really tell the story."

The story was that one blocked punt turned the game.

Overall, the time of possession was close to even, with Penn State having the ball for 30 minutes, 53 seconds and Ohio State for 29:07.

After the game, Ohio State coach Urban Meyer mentioned the play on which the Buckeyes fumbled in the first quarter, and Penn State recovered.

"I kind of thought, 'Uh oh,' " Meyer said. "We're just going to have to make serious changes on personnel and everything else."

Of course, they didn't, and things turned out fine.