COLLEGE FOOTBALL : East Roundup : Penn St. Needs Blocked Punt to Beat BC, 23-20

Boston College, which stumbled against USC in its season opener, gave Penn State all it could handle Saturday at University Park, Pa.

The 16th-ranked Nittany Lions (2-0) needed a blocked punt by Eddie Johnson and a last-minute field goal to pull out a 23-20 win over the Eagles, who lost, 34-7, to USC.

Penn State Coach Joe Paterno said: “We were very, very fortunate to win. We had enough mistakes.”

Paterno said special-teams coach Tom Bradley asked for permission to send his players after punter Brian Lowe with 1:46 left to play.

“I said, ‘Yes, but we better not rough that kicker,’ ” Paterno recalled telling his assistant.

Said Johnson: “I came free and my eyes lit up.”

Johnson’s punt block gave Penn State the ball at the Boston College 27-yard line. After gaining 6 yards on three running plays, Penn State called on Ray Tarasi to kick a 37-yard field goal.

Boston College (1-2) tied the game, 20-20, with 6:45 remaining on a 12-play, 72-yard drive capped by Mark Kamphaus’ 19-yard pass to Tom Waddle. The drive was helped by a pass-interference penalty and a personal foul, which allowed the Eagles to retain possession in a punting situation.

Vanderbilt 31, Rutgers 30--Eric Jones threw a touchdown pass and scored on second-half runs of 33 and 1 yard as the Commodores snapped a three-year road losing streak by beating the Scarlet Knights at East Rutherford, N.J.

Vanderbilt, which lost 12 straight road games since beating Tulane in 1985, broke the streak despite a school-record, 436-yard passing performance by Scott Erney of Rutgers.

However, it was an interception of a pass thrown by Erney that led to Vanderbilt’s victory.

Trailing, 27-24, linebacker David Summers picked off an Erney pass, giving the Commodores possession at their own 49. Four plays later, Jones passed to tailback Brad Gaines for a 35-yard gain to the Rutgers 1 and Jones sneaked into the end zone with 11:01 to play.

Rutgers closed to within 31-30 on a 49-yard field goal by Carmen Sclafani with 7:59 to play. Sclafani then missed two difficult chances, one from 51 yards and the other from 59 on the final play of the game.

Erney completed 33 of 55 passes and Eric Young caught 13 passes for 171 yards for Rutgers.

Vanderbilt is 2-0 and Rutgers is 1-1.

West Virginia 55, Maryland 24--Major Harris passed for one touchdown and ran for another as No. 12 West Virginia, down 14 points only 4 minutes into the game, rallied to beat the Terrapins at Morgantown, W.Va.

Maryland (1-1) stunned the Mountaineers with two Mike Beasley touchdown runs, the first for 11 yards after Anthony Brown’s fumble on the opening play of the game and the other a 74-yard sprint after a West Virginia punt.

The Mountaineers (3-0) scored 17 straight points while holding Maryland to just five first-half first downs to climb back into the game. West Virginia put the game away by scoring the final four touchdowns.

Temple 12, Navy 7--Tony Lerro passed to split end Mike Palys for a four-quarter, 35-yard touchdown play as the Owls (1-2) won at Annapolis, Md. Navy falls to 1-2.

Lerro, listed third on the Temple depth chart, started at quarterback in place of the injured Matt Baker.

Harvard 41, Columbia 7--Tom Yohe threw for 2 touchdowns and Tony Hinz ran for 2 more as the Crimson won its season-opener at Cambridge, Mass., to extend Columbia’s record losing streak to 42 games.

Columbia’s score, a 4-yard pass from Mike Seiderwand to Matt Less which was set up by a 61-yard run by Solomon Johnson, ended a scoreless string of 159 minutes 23 seconds against Havard. During that span, the Crimson outscored the Lions, 135-0.

Yale 24, Brown 24--Sophomore tailback Nick Badalato rushed for 99 yards and scored twice for Brown and Yale tailback Kevin Brice rushed for 98 yards and scored 2 touchdowns for Yale as the Ivy League schools battled to a tie at Providence, R.I.

Princeton 26, Cornell 17--Fullback Greg DiFelice scored 2 touchdowns as Princeton opened its Ivy League season by beating Cornell at Ithaca, N.Y.

Penn 33, Dartmouth 27--Fullback Jim Beato scored two second-half touchdowns to lead Penn at Hanover, N.H.

Lafayette 28, Holy Cross 20--Freshman Tom Costello ran for 135 yards and one score and Frank Baur threw for 238 yards and 2 touchdowns to lead Lafayette over Holy Cross in Easton, Pa. Baur finished 10 of 18 and threw 2 touchdown passes to Phil Ng.