Penn State had Indiana on the ropes.

No timeouts. 1:51 left on the clock. Indiana takes possession at its own 20-yard line after Penn State fails to convert the game-ending first down.

Zane Durant sacks Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza for a 7-yard loss. From there, Mendoza solidified his Heisman candidacy with one of the most well-crafted drives in college football this season.

He fired a deep pass up the middle for wideout Omar Cooper Jr. for 22 yards and a first down. Indiana spiked the ball on first down before Mendoza completed a 12-yard pass to E.J. Williams Jr. that ended up out of bounds to stop the clock.

Mendoza then missed a wide-open Cooper down the field for the surefire go-ahead touchdown. He shook that off with a 29-yard rifle to Indiana tight end Riley Nowakowski. Another chunk of 17 yards to Charlie Becker on first down forced a Penn State timeout, although there were some substitution complications on the play.

With Indiana knocking on 1st-and-goal from the seven, Yvan Kemajou pressured Mendoza into an incomplete pass as the Beaver Stadium crowd rallied once more. King Mack broke up Mendoza’s pass to Williams on second down.

Then, the inevitable. 3rd-and-goal. Mendoza dropped back and somehow got a pass off while getting sandwiched between Mack and Zion Tracy. The perfect ball finds Cooper in the back of the end zone, who inexplicably reels the ball in and gets his toes down for the go-ahead and eventual winning score.

That’s how Penn State vs. Indiana ended. On an immaculate throw, an impossible catch, and all-too-familiar heartbreak for the Nittany Lions.

“Very, very difficult one to handle. Locker room is taking it very tough. I’m super proud of the effort that our guys put out there,” Terry Smith said postgame. “These guys play hard. I feel awful for them. They do everything we ask of them, and we just keep coming up short.”

The salt in the wound for Penn State is that it registered its best defensive performance since James Franklin’s firing and almost knocked off the No. 2 team in the country. Penn State was a drive away from making the colossal dumpster fire that is 2025 into at least one fond memory.

Going into Beaver Stadium, Indiana was the best offense in the country. The Hoosiers averaged 46.4 points per game before week 11 and were slaughtering Big Ten opponents left and right. Penn State gave them the biggest run for their money so far this season.

The Nittany Lions sacked Mendoza three times, registered an astounding eight tackles-for-loss, had six quarterback hurries, and forced a fumble on the Cal transfer.

If that wasn’t enough, Mack picked off Mendoza down the sideline in a momentum-swinging fourth-quarter play. The interception juiced the Beaver Stadium crowd right back up, culminating with Nick Singleton’s 19-yard touchdown reception on the subsequent drive.

“It’s definitely tough. We go through emotions through the game, ups, downs, then really high, like ‘oh, man, we about to win this game, about to beat the No. 2 team in the country, and then they go down and drive the field and score’,” Dani Dennis-Sutton said.

Even through all of the pressure that Penn State was able to put on Mendoza, consistently making him scramble out of the pocket or throw the ball away to avoid a sack, it didn’t do enough to squeeze the game-losing mistake out of him. The Nittany Lions set aside their frustration and commended the signal caller for his play.

“I’m being 100% honest with you, he a Miami native. So, I know we beat him up, but it’s a dawg mentality in Miami, being from Miami,” Mack said of Mendoza. “I knew he was going to come ready to fight. He came up to me after the game, told me I had a hell of a game. Told me [I’m] a hell of a player, ‘keep going’. He got my respect.”

Zane Durant, Dennis-Sutton, and Campbell all commended Mendoza’s late-game heroics and pocket presence postgame. Mendoza’s talent was on full display. Penn State’s barrage of pressure and razor-close margin to victory is now completely overshadowed by Mendoza’s perfect throw and Cooper’s immaculate catch.

“I think we had a pretty good, decent game as a defense. But when it mattered, we didn’t show up, and that’s what defense is about,” Dennis-Sutton said. “You got to show up [in] the tough times when you’re at the end zone, 7-yard line, third down, and we didn’t show up.”

Whether or not Penn State should have ever even been in the position to have its back against the wall in the final two minutes is a conversation for another day. The reality is that the Nittany Lions had the chance to mark off a signature win, and the horrors of this season exemplified themselves once more. Penn State cannot finish games. Being so close yet finishing so far causes a mental strain on the team.

“It does hurt. It hurt my heart to see how much work we put in. And us flushing these weeks, week after week, just flushing it, and then same thing…We’re in a storm right now, and we got to get ourselves out of it,” Mack said.

Despite the heartbreaking end, Smith finds solace in the fact that Penn State’s wounds weren’t completely self-inflicted. Indiana just made bigger plays. Football is a cruel sport. It’s as simple as that.

It’s been a cruel month for Penn State football as a whole. So many different factors clouding over Happy Valley, yet Smith still has the squad ready to go, has the Nittany Lions fighting competitive games week in and week out. And that weighs more than any loss.

“I’m not making excuses, but we play at Iowa at night, and No. 1 team, No. 2 team,” Smith said. “It was a tough road, and we’re going to come back next week. We’re going to fight harder. No one will ever question a Terry Smith team that they don’t play hard.”