Here’s why Penn State’s game-winning TD was so much more than a routine catch for Keyvone Lee

Keyvone Lee tried to hide his ear-to-ear smirk outside Ross-Ade Stadium. Before, he was doing backflips in the end zone, but now he was gripping a white towel around his neck trying to quell his joy.

His performance warranted emotion.

Lee had just caught the game-winning touchdown in Penn State’s 35-31 season-opening win against Purdue. He called it the top moment — not play — of his football career.

“I’m going to give it [No. 1] all-time. It’s going to be forever one,” Lee said. “I’m going to say that because of what went into that moment. Not necessarily the moment of the catch was No. 1, but just what went into that whole moment to get in that drive and score that touchdown.”

Let’s set the scene: Penn State and Purdue were on the heels of an instant classic Thursday.

On this particular night, it was more of the same for Lee. Penn State’s starting running back had seven carries for 17 yards through three quarters. He finished with 30 yards on nine carries. His longest rush went 12 yards.

“I needed that, to be honest,” Lee said. “I was kind of losing faith and losing hope at the beginning of the game because things weren’t really going the way I wanted it to go. But I just got an opportunity and made the best of it. It helped change my perspective.”

Penn State’s offense got off to a sluggish start, punting on its first two drives. None of its three first-half touchdown drives featured Lee on the field. The Boilermakers crawled all the way back, taking a 31-28 lead in the fourth quarter after a 72-yard pick-six by Chris Jefferson.

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The Nittany Lions regained possession with 2 minutes, 22 seconds left from their own 20-yard line, trailing by a field goal.

James Franklin had been consistent all night with his running back rotation. Lee started. Nick Singleton took the subsequent drive. Then Kaytron Allen, and back to Lee, with Devyn Ford thrown into the mix.

This two-minute drill felt a bit different.

It was Allen’s shift, so he took the first five plays, including an 8-yard rush to bring Penn State to its own 43-yard line. A 27-yard completion to Mitchell Tinsley brought the Nittany Lions deep into enemy territory.

That’s when Franklin subbed in Lee.

Three snaps later, Lee made a play worthy of the smile.

Sean Clifford rolled out to his right and floated the ball up off his back foot. Lee got a step of separation from his defender off the line of scrimmage and watched the ball float into his hands, almost in slow motion.

Lee was at a little bit of a loss for words when asked why he thought Franklin subbed him in to finish off what proved to be the game-winning drive.

“I was ready for that moment. I was prepared for that moment,” said Lee, a sophomore. “I’ve been in those situations, end-of-game situations where another team is going [cover] zero.”

Franklin mentioned earlier in the week that the Nittany Lions had spent a great deal of time preparing to play against Purdue’s cover zero defense — man-to-man coverage replacing the deep defender with an extra pass rusher.

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“That last play was cover zero, so they blocked everybody they were supposed to,” Clifford said. “So I don’t want to hear anything about, ‘Ah, on the last play ...’ No. That was a broken play. We had to make a play.”

Entering this season, Lee got the nod as the incumbent starter, although his job is far from safe. The two freshmen behind him, Singleton and Allen, have both shown plenty of promise.

Singleton nearly broke into open field on his first touch out of the backfield before being tripped up 9 yards past the line of scrimmage. He had 22 yards on nine carries. Allen — nicknamed “Fatman” — was considered the biggest surprise of fall camp, according to Franklin. He had a team-high 31 yards on the ground on eight carries in his debut.

This early in the season, it goes to show that despite the level of competition among the running backs, Lee remains the experienced, go-to guy in make-or-break situations.

“I think we’ll probably go into the next game based on how this game went, with a very similar philosophy,” Franklin said. “If somebody takes over and gets real hot, then we’ll adjust. Right now, if I had to guess, we’ll probably be in a similar rotation.”

Former Nittany Lions quarterback Chris Ganter is spearheading a new football-centric NIL collective called Lions Legacy Club in partnership with Blueprint Sports. Ganter will be joined by Ki-Jana Carter and Michael Mauti, according to Tuesday morning’s announcement.

The Lions Legacy Club is a 501(c)(3) organization aiming to connect local and national businesses with Penn State football players by “creating custom marketing campaigns, securing speaking engagements and autograph sessions, and more.”

“Obviously this one specifically wanted to work with football,” Franklin said when asked about the newly formed collective. “The other groups are doing that as well, but this is something that we want to make sure those groups are working together doing what’s best for Penn State and Penn State athletics as a whole. … We appreciate what they’re doing. Obviously, there’s a lot of passion and hard work that’s going into it. … We look forward to any opportunities that they can present to our student-athletes and our program. I think [athletic director] Pat [Kraft] has really kind of come in and worked really well with these groups outside of the athletic department in making sure everybody’s on the same page and we’re all pulling the rope in the same direction.”