State College, Pa. — This one had all the makings of a blowout.
Penn State was trying to play itself into the best bowl game possible, while MSU was limping to the end of its season without a chance at a bowl game and a coach on his way out.
But the Spartans played with pride. They stood up and fought instead of rolling over, and even took a lead into halftime. In the end though, it wasn't enough, as Penn State pulled out a 17-13 win Saturday at Beaver Stadium.
The Spartans needed to look back just four years to motivate themselves to play hard. In 2002, a similar 4-7 MSU team that had its coach fired three weeks earlier ended the season by going into Penn State and getting thumped, 61-7.
"We went to Penn State and got our butts whooped," senior linebacker David Herron Jr. recalled of the Nov. 23 game. "I told them we're not about to go out like that — we're about to show character.
"Even though we don't have a bowl game, we're going to come out and fight, and that's what both sides of the ball did (Saturday)."
That effort, however, was wasted by missed opportunities. MSU (4-8 overall, 1-7 Big Ten) forced and recovered four first-half Penn State (8-4, 5-3) fumbles.
Three were recovered in Penn State territory, and the fourth was recovered at MSU's 48-yard line.
But the offense struggled to move the ball, especially on the ground. MSU ran for 14 yards a week after gaining 3 yards against Minnesota.
As a result, the Spartans were able to convert the four turnovers into just 67 yards and 13 points — two fields goals from freshman kicker Brett Swenson and an 11-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Brian Hoyer to senior wide receiver Kerry Reed.
"You've got to capture all the little things," senior left guard Kyle Cook said. "You look at those little things in the beginning, and it could've put you over.
"We just shoot ourselves in the foot when we get down in the red zone."
Despite missing some chances, the Spartans still held a 13-7 halftime lead thanks to a strong defensive effort. On top of the four forced fumbles, three different players sacked Penn State quarterback Anthony Morelli before intermission. As a team, the Nittany Lions were held to 125 yards of offense in the first half.
"The defense played tremendous today and gave us a ton of opportunities," MSU head coach John L. Smith said of his final game with MSU, after being fired Nov. 1.
"We had an opportunity to win the football game and just didn't get it done."
Without the turnovers to give them good field position, the MSU offense couldn't threaten the end zone in the second half. Their only scoring chance was a 35-yard field goal that Swenson sailed wide left — the second miss of the game, doubling his season-miss total entering the game.
Later in the third quarter, Morelli threw a 6-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jordan Norwood to give Penn State a 14-13 lead. The Nittany Lions added a fourth-quarter field goal to push their lead to 17-13.
Hoyer, who completed 30 of a school-record 61 pass attempts for 291 yards, was sacked on fourth-and-two with fewer than two minutes left to kill any chance of an MSU comeback.
The Spartans haven't won at Beaver Stadium since 1965.
Record-setter
With a 2-yard catch in the third quarter, senior wide receiver Matt Trannon became MSU's all-time leader in receptions. His 148 catches are two more than Andre Rison's previous record of 146.
Trannon took an unusual path to the record books. He set MSU's single-game receptions record with 14 catches against Eastern Michigan in the second week of the season but was pretty quiet on the field after that.
He then missed two games after hurting his ankle Oct. 7 against Michigan and needed 15 catches in the last two weeks to break the record.
"I wasn't paying attention to records," Trannon said. "I was just trying to get a win."
At the same time, Trannon knows it's something he can reflect on in the future.
"I have something to fall back on and look at the Michigan State record books and see my name in there as one of the great receivers," he said.
Not so fond farewell
There was no valiant performance from senior quarterback Drew Stanton in his final collegiate game.
In fact, his status for the game was pretty much set early in the week.
"I called him in and told him regardless of what the doctors say, he's not going to play," Smith said. "We didn't take a chance, and he didn't have any say in that."
Stanton suffered a concussion Nov. 11 against Minnesota and was feeling some lingering effects of that during the week. Even though Smith said Stanton "was fine," the coach didn't want to jeopardize Stanton's future.
"I know he wanted to be out there and play his last game with his teammates, but he's got some other things he's got to think about," Smith said.
Steve Highfield can be reached at highfie4@msu.edu.
