COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Irish Go for Two, but It’s All for Naught : Penn State Stops Conversion Attempt, Defeats Notre Dame, 21-20

It would be the last hit Penn State’s defense would make for 40 days and 40 nights, until the Florida Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Day, so senior linebacker Trey Bauer wanted it to be a good one. He hoped somebody would put a hit on a Notre Dame player, not only to save the game, but to get back at a Notre Dame coach who, Bauer said, hit him.

And so, the Nittany Lion linemen and linebackers lined up. The defensive backs bore down. Notre Dame had just scored a touchdown, with 31 seconds remaining in Saturday’s game at snow-glazed Beaver Stadium, and the score was 21-20, in favor of Penn State. But a two-point conversion would give Notre Dame the game and an outside shot at the national championship, so the Fighting Irish went for it. . . .

And the score was still 21-20, in favor of Penn State.

Quarterback Tony Rice’s ankle was yanked by Penn State tackle Pete Curkendall at the five-yard line. Down went Rice; down went Notre Dame. Nothing was left for the seventh-ranked Irish (8-2) to do except accept a bid to the Cotton Bowl to play the champion of the Southwest Conference.

“We’re banged up, and our dreams and goals are not intact,” said the losing coach, Lou Holtz.

“A lot of hopes, a lot of dreams went down the drain,” said the Heisman Trophy favorite, Tim Brown.

Irish eyes weren’t smiling.

Worse yet, Holtz’s heroes must go to Miami next Saturday, carrying with them the knowledge that even if they blow the Hurricanes halfway to Haiti, it still will not keep Miami out of the Orange Bowl.

Penn State (8-3), meanwhile, had the satisfaction of knowing that even if it could not repeat as national champion, at least it: (a) stopped Notre Dame’s five-game winning streak; (b) kept the Irish winless in this stadium; (c) introduced a nationwide TV audience to Heisman candidate of tomorrow, Blair Thomas, who rushed for 219 yards, and (d) comforted Citrus Bowl officials, who feared that their Jan. 1 blind date between Penn State and Clemson was turning out to be a dog.

Coach Joe Paterno, with happy Orlando people within earshot, said: “I had promised some people we wouldn’t go to Florida with a 7-4 record. I told our players: ‘Now don’t make me look bad.’ ”

They didn’t.

In game-time temperatures of 18 degrees, with a wind chill that made it colder and a wind that made passing and kicking hazardous, the Nittany Lions warmed up for their 1988 vacation to Disney World by pushing the Fighting Irish all over the field. They opened holes for Thomas that Dumbo the elephant could have run through. They helped him become the first Penn State back to gain 200 yards since Curt Warner got 256 against Syracuse in 1981.

The Irish, who never led, did push back a couple of times. Twice, they came back to tie. And, they could have won, had they not bungled their final plays of both halves, each time from the Penn State three.

Another way the Irish pushed back, according to Penn State’s Bauer, was after Rice ran 11 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter, tying the score, 14-14. The linebacker gave the quarterback one last bump at the intersection of the goal line and sideline, drawing a dead-ball foul in the process. “It wasn’t like he was eight feet out of bounds or anything,” Bauer said in his own defense.

A minor melee ensued, during which it appeared that one Notre Dame player tried to moonwalk on Bauer’s face. Bauer wasn’t sure about that, but he did say: “One of their coaches punched me. Right in the chest, he literally punched me. I know who it was. I don’t know his name, but if I saw a picture of him, I could identify him.”

Asked if he wanted to see some mug shots, Bauer laughed and said: “Nah. Let it be. But then, that coach even taunted me some more during the TV timeout. And, they gave me a 15-yard penalty for a late hit, which was just a joke!”

A flamboyant, outspoken character who cruises around campus in a 1973 Pinto with 110,000 miles on it, Bauer does not shy away from a challenge. Before Saturday’s game, when asked if the defense was concerned with stopping Brown, the New Jersey native shot back: “Tim Brown is a concern, but not a big concern. He’s not Superman. He doesn’t wear a red cape or a big ‘S’ on his chest.”

As if to prove it, Penn State’s defense brought Brown back to earth. The Irish flanker was kept out of the end zone. He caught four passes for 80 yards, returned one kickoff for 16, and returned one punt for 7. Wobbly, wind-blown kicks went nowhere near him.

In the first period, while Brown was still on the sideline, Paterno ordered Penn State to quick-kick on third down. Notre Dame safety Brandy Wells had to drop back to field it--and he fumbled it away at the Irish 19. Two plays later, Penn State scored.

Taken out of the game, Brown was down and out when it was over.

“We thought if we defeated Penn State, the Orange Bowl would wait,” the senior from Dallas said. “Right now I have mixed feelings about playing in the Cotton Bowl. It will be good to play in front of my family, but right now I’m not thinking about it much.”

The visiting Irish came looking for their first nine-win season since 1980 and for their first victory ever at Beaver Stadium. Holtz tried to keep them in good spirits the night before the game by treating the players to the Bruce Willis movie “Blind Date,” which, when it comes to motivational films used to psych up football players, is rarely listed up there with “Patton.”

What the Irish could not anticipate was the mistakes they would make. In the final 30 seconds of the first half, at Penn State’s three, Holtz sent in second-string quarterback Kent Graham, who had completed 15 of 20 passes this season but also had three intercepted. He promptly had a fourth intercepted, by Brian Chizmar in the end zone. Had Graham thrown the ball away, a field goal could have saved Notre Dame’s day.

Chizmar, whose position is listed as “hero” back, also recovered Wells’ fumbled punt. Hero he was.

It didn’t take long after the quick-kick was juggled for Penn State to take a 7-0 lead. Two plays: Thomas running nine yards to the 10, and fullback John Greene churning into the end zone from there.

Notre Dame struck back in the same period on a 32-yard touchdown bootleg by Rice. But Irish goofs continued. One player tackled a man who called for a fair catch. Another committed pass interference in the end zone. Thomas cracked over from the one, and it was 14-7 at halftime.

Thomas, who carried 35 times for 219 yards, has gained 1,419 yards this season--with 2 fumbles. He evaluated himself fairly modestly after the game, saying: “I think I ran great, but my pass protection and blocking wasn’t much. I can still better myself.”

When Brown, this year’s Heisman shoo-in, was asked about Thomas, next year’s Heisman hopeful, his only comment was: “Blair Thomas is Blair Thomas. I don’t have any comment about him. I watch our defense, not what Blair Thomas is doing.”

Running through it, that’s what Blair Thomas was doing.

After Rice’s 11-yard scramble tied the score in the third quarter, Penn State went for the win. On a 15-play, 76-yard march that ate up more than 7 minutes, Thomas banged away three times from the 26 to the 3, before Green took it in with 7:34 to play. This made it 21-14.

There was an exchange of punts. Then, with 4 1/2 minutes remaining, Notre Dame made its bid.

Brown caught a 16-yard pass to the Nittany Lion 46. Fullback Anthony Johnson caught one at the 30. Tailback Mark Green ran it to the 17. Four more runs took it to the four.

Rice faded to pass, dropped all the way to his 12, then ad-libbed his way to within inches of the goal. And, with 31 seconds to go, Johnson bulled over for the touchdown. Notre Dame trailed by a point.

Two-point conversion time. “Coach Holtz left it up to us,” Brown said. “We couldn’t win the national championship without a win over Penn State, so he gave us the choice of going for two or kicking it.”

The Irish called a timeout and talked it over. Brown ran back onto the field with his arm around Rice.

They lined up in a wishbone.

Paterno called time and put in five new players.

This time, the Irish lined up with twin wideouts on the right side. Holtz planned to flood the end zone, and let Rice pass.

Only Rice didn’t want to pass. He studied the defense, and got the shakes. “I should have checked out of it (changed the play),” the sophomore said. “They were overloaded to my right. But I just didn’t want to mess up.”

He did. He dropped to pass, then decided to run. He got nowhere.

Said Holtz: “The quarterback wasn’t comfortable with the play. Sometimes I ask myself if that’s important. I can’t honestly say that it isn’t.”

The game was over, except for an on-side kick that didn’t work.

Penn State was tasting victory, and the Citrus tasted sweet.

Cotton tasted rotten.