The biggest story of Week 1 of the college football season was not LSU’s romping over Clemson, nor was it Rutgers’ embarrassing Thursday night loss to a team that hadn’t won since the Biden administration, nor was it any big upset.

Unfortunately, for Big Ten fans and the rest of the sport, it was a should-be upset wiped away by an inexplicable phantom second added to the clock. Western Michigan seemed to have pulled off an Appalachian State-esque miracle against in-state rival Michigan at the Big House, only for officials to add one second to the clock in what’s since been a complete mess in justifying it.

As we all know, Bryce Underwood would avenge his horrific night with a game-winning Hail Mary touchdown. Even if most of the college football world considers it a loss (including the AP Poll), the record books will call it a win.

As baffling as this whole situation has been, it’s not even the first time this has happened to Michigan at the Big House. 21 years ago, it found another phantom second and used it to upset a very good Penn State team, sticking a giant nail in the tires of a team that very well could’ve played for a BCS National Championship if not for the zebras.

Let’s go back to the 2005 season, a year that was seen as make-or-break for Joe Paterno at Penn State. The longtime head coach, entering his 40th season in charge, saw his seat slowly start to simmer after consecutive losing seasons.

Paterno was 78 years old at the time, and many wondered if the game was passing him by, prompting calls to replace one of the most admired men on campus ahead of 2005. Penn State President Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley, two names that would go down in infamy years later, reportedly asked him to step down, but the coach’s tenure allowed him to continue.

At least for 2005, that was great news for Penn State. It started the season 6-0 after winning seven combined games in the two prior seasons, capping it off with consecutive ranked wins at Beaver Stadium against No. 18 Minnesota and No. 6 Ohio State. It had vaulted the Nittany Lions into the top 10 ahead of the biggest road game of the year in Ann Arbor.

For Michigan, it opened the year No. 4 in the nation but sputtered to a 3-3 start. The Wolverines entered that blockbuster battle unranked, with losses to Wisconsin, Notre Dame, and Minnesota. They had pulled off a big road upset in East Lansing against No. 11 Michigan State a few weeks prior, but Penn State entered as favorites by virtue of its dominant start to the season.

The game was a scoreless slog for much of the first half. Penn State drove into field goal range twice in the opening half, only for Kevin Kelly to shank both a 32- and 45-yarder. Paterno elected to attempt both field goals on 4th-and-1, a clear sign of how the game has shifted in the two decades since.

Michigan took a 3-0 lead late in the first half on a 35-yard field goal by Gabriel Rivas, but missed a chance to double that lead after a Michael Robinson fumble set the Wolverines up with good field position. A big third-down sack by Tamba Hali made it a more difficult 45-yard kick, which Rivas had blocked in the final seconds of the first half.

Penn State’s offense was still stuck in quicksand for much of the third quarter, as Michigan stretched the lead to 10 on a Mike Hart rushing touchdown, but it finally got on the board in the dying seconds of the third on Kelly’s 25-yard attempt, which finally sailed through the uprights.

After a quick Michigan punt, a 66-yard scamper by Tony Hunt set up a rushing touchdown by Robinson with 12 minutes to play to tie the game at 10.

Exactly one play later, a scramble by Michigan quarterback Chad Henne ended in disaster as Alan Zemaitis ripped the ball out of his hands and dashed to the end zone for a go-ahead touchdown. As if things couldn’t get worse for the Wolverines, a muffed snap on the extra point somehow resulted in Kelly, the kicker, converting a two-point conversion to make it 18-10. From there, the game became a track meet.

Henne found Mario Manningham, he of future Super Bowl fame, in the end zone for a 33-yard score just three minutes later, and Michigan evened the game at 18 on a Hunt two-point conversion.

A Penn State punt, a Michigan field goal, and a back-breaking Robinson interception gave the Wolverines the ball in Penn State territory with three minutes to go and a 21-18 lead, but the Nittany Lions forced a punt, which gave them one last crack at this.

Starting the drive on their own 19, Robinson led the Nittany Lions on a methodical, 12-play, 81-yard drive that included a huge 4th-and-7 conversion and finally culminated in a Robinson draw play for his second rushing touchdown, giving Penn State a 25-21 lead in the final minute.

Here’s where we find ourselves in an eerily similar situation to Saturday night.

Needing only to prevent a touchdown, the Nittany Lions played more conservatively on defense, relying on the clock. Allowing a massive return to the Michigan 45 didn’t help, but they bent and bent down the field as time bled off.

The first controversial play came one play later, as Mike Avant toe-tapped an 18-yard completion, but the broadcast caught that his heel immediately touched the ground after the initial toe-tap. Nobody knows what a catch is, but it was not even flagged for replay. Judge for yourself:

This is going to become a trend, but Michigan got another controversial call in its favor on the very next play.

Henne hit Carl Tabb for a completion, but the receiver was pulled down inbounds, with the Wolverines calling a timeout with 28 seconds left. After a commercial break, the referees put an extra two seconds on the game clock to put it at the time when Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr apparently called the timeout. Wonder if those two seconds will be crucial.

As the Wolverines approached the red zone, they also got the clock to stop on a play in which it seemed Penn State had stopped Hart’s forward progress at the 17-yard line. If it was ruled that way, the clock would’ve kept running.

It all culminates in this. Six seconds left. Michigan on the 10-yard line. A touchdown wins it for Michigan. A stop by Penn State wins it for the Nittany Lions. Henne, frankly, makes a terrible decision by throwing to Steve Breaston at the four-yard line in the final seconds. If he makes the catch and is tackled, the game is over.

Instead, the ball is broken up by Justin King with one second left.

One second.

If you recall a few plays ago, the officials added two seconds to the clock in the middle of the drive. Do the math; the game should be over.

Instead, Manningham burned Zemaitis on a slant route, and Henne fired a bullet into his waiting arms for a 10-yard, game-winning touchdown at the death. Michigan stuns Penn State, 27-25. You can watch the whole final drive right here:

It’s different in that Western Michigan thought the game was over and Penn State knew it still had one more play, but both teams felt similarly irked afterward. It’s a game many Penn State fans have refused to ever let go of, and for good reason.

After this game, Michigan played out a ho-hum 7-5 season. Almost nothing would’ve changed about their season.

For Penn State? It rebounded from this loss and ran the table, winning its final four games to finish the regular season at 10-1 and No. 3 in the country. A decade later, it would have played for a national championship in the College Football Playoff, but that didn’t exist in 2005.

Instead, it was left as the odd man out. USC and Texas both went undefeated and went on to face each other in the legendary 2006 Rose Bowl for the BCS National Championship, but it was absolutely possible that one of those teams could’ve been replaced with an 11-0 Penn State team.

I call it possible, but not likely. Both the Trojans and Longhorns opened the year in the No. 1 and No. 2 positions and never lost a game while running the table in the Pac-10 and Big 12, respectively. While the BCS Rankings were notably not human-based and were thus easier to break through, there’s absolutely no guarantee Penn State would’ve gotten to play for a title, even if it went 11-0.

It’s one of the bigger “what-ifs” in program history, though. What if it did find its way into the dance? Would it help with restoring a dormant Penn State brand that had fizzled out since the infamous 1994 robbery? Would it spark a new golden age in the late 2000s? Would Paterno go out on a high note if they won and never had to face the music with the Jerry Sandusky scandal in 2011?

Nobody knows. What we do know is that some weird stuff happens at the Big House with the game clock.