Penn State spread bettors had to be putting a foot through the television on Saturday.
The Nittany Lions’ meeting against the Villanova Wildcats in Week 3 produced one of the absolute worst beats of all-time. Penn State easily won by a final of 52-6, but it was the last play of the game that had everybody talking.
Villanova was getting shut out at that point and had yet to put a single point up on the board at the time of the last snap of the game. On a 4th-and-goal from the Penn State 8-yard line, Wildcats quarterback Tanner Maddocks was flushed from the pocket and had to run for his life as time expired.
Just as Maddocks was about to be shoved out of bounds, he fired a prayer of a pass across his body towards the end zone. The pass found Villanova wide receiver Brandon Binkowski in the very back of the end zone, and Binkowski made an absurd one-handed catch for a game-ending touchdown.
Penn State entered Saturday as 48.5-point favorites over Villanova. But with that hard-to-believe sequence, the Wildcats somehow managed to cover the spread.
Take a look at the video.
Penn State was a 48.5-point favorite and Villanova covered on this absolutely insane catch pic.twitter.com/NFv58gp6s2
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 13, 2025
What should have been the biggest story of the game was Penn State’s dominating performance. Quarterback Drew Allar threw for 209 yards and a touchdown, Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton combined for three touchdowns on the ground, and Jahmir Joseph added a pick-six as well to help the No. 2-ranked Nittany Lions improve to a perfect 3-0 on the season.
But instead, most people (at least in the gambling community) will be talking about that horrifically bad beat. That had to beat out even the wacky one from a college bowl game a couple of years ago.
