Penn State RB Devyn Ford cost team with mental error on touchdown

Scoring a touchdown is almost always the goal in football, but it actually cost Penn State dearly in their 36-35 loss to Indiana at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Indiana on Saturday.

Indiana was down 21-20 with just under two minutes left in the game and threw incomplete on fourth down at their 14 to turn the ball over to Penn State on downs. Indiana only had one timeout, so Penn State just needed to run down most of the clock to seal the win. Instead, they screwed up.

Indiana decided to let Penn State score, and running back Devyn Ford took the bait.

Rather than go down short of the end zone so his team could run out the clock, Ford went in for the touchdown on the first down play. He didn’t realize his error until it was too late.

Reminder that Penn State had the chance to run this clock outpic.twitter.com/64n8sTNRE5

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 24, 2020

Ford’s touchdown gave Penn State a 28-20 lead, but it also gave the ball back to Indiana. The Hoosiers drove to tie the game with 22 seconds left on a Michael Penix Jr. touchdown run. They tied it on a 2-point conversion by Penix.

And, of course, Indiana won the game in overtime on this controversial play.

After the game, Penn State coach James Franklin and tight end Pat Freiermuth confirmed the team talked about not scoring in that situation.

Franklin says they had gone over the "not scoring" situation. But drills home that turnovers/penalties were – over the course of the game – a bigger factor.

— Ben Jones (@Ben_Jones88) October 25, 2020

Pat Freiermuth confirms that they went over the "don't score" but echos the general feeling that it comes down to more than one play.

— Ben Jones (@Ben_Jones88) October 25, 2020

Unfortunately for Penn State, Ford failed to go down, and the team ended up losing.