I feel like I've seen this movie before.
Northwestern took the lead early, looked great on offense in the first half, and seemed like they might pull off the upset. But they couldn't do anything in the second half and lost for the fifth straight time.
The defense was once again a disaster, allowing Silas Redd to run for a career high in yards on just 18 carries and giving up yet another long touchdown pass to a wide open receiver on play action. Dan Persa had a great looking statline: 26 of 34 for 294 yards and a touchdown, but he threw a costly interception early in the second half that completely changed the momentum of the game. And once again, the offensive line did a terrible job in pass protection, allowing seven sacks, and most of those came when PSU was rushing four guys.
Additionally, Pat Fitzgerald made a couple of bizarre tactical decisions, inexplicably calling a timeout with 55 seconds left in the first half that gave Penn State time for the go ahead touchdown before halftime, and punting on 4th and 3 in Penn State territory in the fourth quarter when his defense had done nothing all night to indicate they could get a stop.
Making matters worse, Persa left the game with turf toe and was limping around on the sideline. At this point, it's going to take a miracle for Northwestern to reach a bowl game.