Penn State Hangs on to Beat Auburn 28-20

It came down to the final minutes, but the Auburn Tigers came up short. Happy Valley proved not so delightful, as the Penn State Nittany Lions defeated Auburn 28-20.

The game went as many expected. Neither QB lit the world on fire and the defenses were the best units on the field. Penn State relied heavily on Jahan Dotson to create offense and Auburn turned to their running back duo of Tank Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter.

Auburn got on the board first with an early field goal to go up 3-0. A few drives later, Penn State put together an 88-yard scoring drive to respond.

Early in the third, an Auburn fumble set Penn State up with a short field which they took advantage of to score a touchdown and go up 21-10. Auburn then scored 10 unanswered to make it 21-20.

Penn State added another score and then Auburn, down eight, had 4th and goal with a few minutes left on the clock and decided to throw a fade to the back of the end zone, a questionable call at best.

Penn State subsequently got the ball back. After Penn State running back Noah Cain had to fight out of the end zone to avoid a safety, pass interference was called. That gave Penn State a first down and a few more plays to run the clock.

Auburn got the ball back with 45 seconds to go and no timeouts. They moved the ball into Penn State territory but just could not do enough with the limited time.

Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford threw for 280 yards and only had four incompletions on the night. Bo Nix’s line wasn’t as prosperous, only going 21-37 with 185 yards. Neither offense was able to find many explosive plays.

Up next for Auburn is a home game versus Georgia State before kicking off conference play against LSU in Baton Rouge on October 2nd.