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Missing the point

Missing an extra point after a touchdown has haunted football teams since the sport was invented in the mid-1800s, and in one such instance in 1959, a missed kick may have cost Penn State a chance at winning its first national championship.
An errant kick usually changes a team's game strategy and often leads to a frustrating loss in a game that could have been won.
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That's precisely what happened on Nov. 7, 1959, in a game hyped as "The Battle of Unbeatens" when the largest crowd in the 51-year history of New Beaver Field, 34,000, saw the Nittany Lions lose, 20-18, to a Syracuse team that went on to win the national title.
The players on Penn State's 1959 team have fretted over that historic missed extra point ever since. And when they gather on this year's Homecoming weekend for their 55th reunion, they will reminisce again about the game and the missed kick. No one will talk more than the player who has organized the team reunions every five years for decades and the man who missed that extra point, Sam Stellatella.
What has been lost in the retelling of Stellatella's missed kick after Penn State's first touchdown is that the Lions also failed twice when attempting to score two points after two electrifying touchdowns in the fourth quarter. That's also the crucial point of Stelllatella's missed extra point. If he had been successful, the two-point tries may not have been necessary and Penn State might have won the game, 21-20.
"Everybody blamed me and said I lost the national championship because if I would have kicked all three points, we would have won the game," Stellatella said recently from his home in Toms River, N.J. "No one felt worse after that game than me. The fact that I missed such an important point stays with you. As a kicker, you have to handle the pressure. You look forward to making the big kick. When you make the kicks you take the glory, and when you miss you take the blame."
The frustrating loss was also the catalyst that thrust the team into the center of backroom political machinations involving a new bowl game in Philadelphia and led to an upset at Pitt in the Lions' last game of the season. It's also why Stellatella has promoted the reunions as a gathering of the 1959 Liberty Bowl team.
That appellation probably seems insignificant to the younger generation of Penn State fans, since the Liberty Bowl, now played in Memphis, is a second-tier game in an overabundance of bowls. However, in 1959 there were only five major bowl games - the traditional Rose, Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Gator bowls - and two new ones, the Liberty and Bluebonnet (in Houston).
What's also historically noteworthy is that Penn State had only played in two other bowl games, losing the 1923 Rose Bowl to USC, 14-3, and tying SMU, 13-13, in the 1948 Cotton Bowl. Thus, Stellatella can rightfully brag that the 1959 team was the first Nittany Lion squad to win a bowl game, as the Lions beat Alabama, 7-0, in the Crimson Tide's first game against an integrated team.
The Liberty Bowl was also Rip Engle's first bowl game. Before he retired at the end of the 1965 season, he took two teams to the Gator Bowl, beating Georgia Tech, 30-15, in 1961, and losing to Florida, 17-7, in 1962. There is no doubt that the 1959 team was Engle's best in his 16-year tenure at Penn State.
Engle's teams had moderate success but only one before 1959 had finished in the top 20 in the polls. That was in 1954 when the Lions finished with a 7-2 record and a ranking of No. 16 in the UPI coaches' poll and No. 20 in the Associated Press media poll.
After two similar seasons in 1957 (6-3) and 1958 (6-3-1), Penn State was an afterthought in college football. Army was then the "Beast of the East" and ranked No. 5 in the 1959 preseason AP poll, with Syracuse the only other Eastern team in the Top 20 at No. 20 in both polls.
Yet, anyone looking closer at the Nittany Lions could see the team's potential, with 15 of 22 starters returning and a genuine Heisman Trophy candidate in senior quarterback Richie Lucas. This was the bygone era of erratic substitution rules when everyone had to play offense and defense. Engle adjusted to the annual tweaking of the rules by utilizing two platoons - nicknamed blue and red because of the color of practice jerseys they wore - that were nearly equal in talent and on-field playing time.
After beating Missouri in the season opener at Columbia, 19-8, Penn State was ranked No. 18 by the AP and then moved to No. 16 with home wins over VMI (21-0) and Colgate (58-20) before facing No. 5 Army at West Point. The Lions upset Army, 17-11, and proceeded to beat Boston University (21-12) at home and Illinois (20-9) and West Virginia (28-10) away to earn a No. 7 AP ranking in their matchup with Syracuse, now rated No. 3 by UPI and No. 4 by the AP.
Syracuse had rolled over six opponents and led the nation in total defense while holding three teams scoreless and two others to only six points. That was enough to make the Orange a six-point favorite in what would be the next-to-last game ever played at New Beaver Field.
In retrospect, the 1959 Syracuse game was one of the greatest in the 128-year history of Penn State football. What's most surprising is that the game was not televised, even regionally. However, it was broadcast nationally on a radio network.
Back then, the postseason bowl games locked up their pairings before the regular season had concluded. By the time Penn State kicked off to Syracuse at 1:30 p.m., the Orange Bowl had zeroed in on Syracuse, and the Liberty Bowl desperately wanted Penn State as the host team, while the Cotton and Gator bowls were still interested in both teams.
Penn State shocked Syracuse in the first quarter, forcing the Orange to punt on its initial possession and then quickly driving into Syracuse territory. Facing second-and-11 at the Syracuse 45-yard line, Lucas found halfback Dick Hoak in the clear near the end zone, but the normally sure-handed Hoak dropped the ball, and the drive sputtered.
Minutes later, guard Bill Popp stripped the ball from Syracuse's quarterback, and Lucas recovered the fumble at the Orange 45. Seven crisp plays later, Penn State had a touchdown on a surprising 17-yard fourth-down run up the middle by sophomore speedster Roger Kochman, who dragged two tacklers into the end zone.
Stellatella, a guard on the red team, ran in to kick the extra point. He had hit on 15 of 16 since taking over the prime place-kicking duties from starting end Henry Opperman during the VMI game, missing only at West Virginia the previous Saturday. The kick was wide right and Stellatella is convinced it was a carryover from his miss against the Mountaineers.
"My oldest sister had died a few days before the West Virginia game, and I missed a day of practice for the viewing," he recalled. "It broke my chain of thought, my timing, and I got off my schedule. My timing was still off when I missed the kick against Syracuse, but I didn't miss any after that."
Gordon White of The New York Times knew instinctively that the missed kick had changed the game. "With better luck the Lions would have come out of that period with a two-touchdown lead," White wrote in his coverage of the game, "and that would have put an entirely different complexion on the game."
The missed extra point seemed to give Syracuse new life. The Orange dominated the game on both offense and defense in building a 20-6 lead with 11:20 left in the fourth quarter. It might have been worse if Hoak had not redeemed himself with an end zone interception after a 66-yard drive when the game was still scoreless. But the Syracuse defense forced a short punt following Hoak's interception, and that set up a 45-yard drive for the Orange's first touchdown in the second quarter. The Syracuse defense also helped set up the other two short touchdown drives of 56 and 41 yards in the second half.
Here is where fate intervened for Stellatella and almost turned Syracuse's left-footed kicker Bob Yates into the goat of the game instead. It started with another missed extra point, this time by Yates after Syracuse's third touchdown.
What happened in the next few minutes were two of the outstanding plays in Penn State history, and they nearly cost Syracuse its national championship.
Yates' kickoff was high and long. Kochman caught the ball on the goal line, and with a key block by Bud Kohlaas on Yates, he ran untouched for a touchdown as the crowd went berserk. Because of Stellatella's miss, the Lions needed two points, but Syracuse's defense forced Lucas to hurry a pass attempt to Hoak and the ball fell short.
The teams traded punts, and when Yates went back to punt again from the Syracuse 9-yard line, tackle Andy Stynchula crashed through the line, slammed into the three-man protection, leaped with his knee planted in the back of a blocker and hit the ball with his right forearm. Syracuse's All-America tackle Fred Mautino reached for the ball but was belted by red team fullback Sam Sobczak, and end Bob Mitinger recovered at the 1-yard line. On the first play, Sobczak bolted in for the touchdown and the Lions lined up again for two points.
This time, Lucas called the same play that gave Penn State its first touchdown, a fake to the fullback and a handoff to Kochman. Syracuse was ready and stopped it.
The clock showed 4:15 to play, and that was too much time left for an onside kick.
The crowd was still yelling when Syracuse's sensational sophomore Ernie Davis took the Lions' kickoff near the sideline and absentmindedly stepped out of bounds at the Orange 7-yard line.
"If Penn State could hold again," White wrote in The New York Times, "there was still a chance for the Nittany Lions."
"But here the Orange proved its greatness, its gameness and its poise," Ridge Riley reported in his popular Alumni News Letter. "Under extreme pressure from Penn State and certainly somewhat shaken by the sudden change in the character of the game, Syracuse slowly and methodically pushed up field for four consecutive first downs to run out the clock."
Stellatella and his teammates were amazed by what happened as the teams trotted off the field to their respective locker rooms.
"The crowd was totally silent at the end of the game, but as we walked off the field they gave both teams a standing ovation," he remembered.
There had been much animosity between Engle and Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder throughout the 1950s, but this time both men were cordial and conciliatory. Engle went to the Syracuse dressing room and offered his congratulations, and Schwartzwalder told reporters this Penn State squad "was the greatest team I've ever come up against."
No one summed up the game better than Engle. "Two points," he told reporters as he held up two fingers. "They kicked points and we didn't."
The Orange deserved to win, but that Saturday they also were lucky because the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in both polls, LSU and Northwestern, were beaten, and Texas, No. 3 in the AP poll, was unimpressive in defeating Baylor, 13-12. Syracuse was now the No. 1 team in the nation, and Penn State was still in the top 10 at No. 9 (UPI) and No. 10 (AP).
Although formal bowl invitations were not permitted until the games of Nov. 14 had been completed, the bowls were scrambling. With the Rose and Sugar bowls off the grid, the Orange and Cotton bowls wanted Syracuse, while the Cotton, Gator and Liberty bowls were reportedly considering Penn State.
Actually, the new Liberty Bowl desperately wanted Penn State to be its host team for the new mid-December game in Philadelphia. For months, Bud Dudley, the bowl's creator and impresario, had been working with politicians, including the governor and legislators, to try and force Penn State to participate in the game.
The Liberty Bowl's formal invitation came following Penn State's 46-0 victory over Holy Cross in the last game ever at New Beaver Field. Athletics director Ernie McCoy, who curiously was a member of the Liberty Bowl's Executive Council, said the school would wait until after the final game of the season at Pitt to decide.
However, in a secret meeting Wednesday night, the players voted to play in the Liberty Bowl after they were told they had no other choices. It was a major disappointment to the team. Not only did the players feel cheated because of what they had accomplished, but they were also upset at all the backroom Liberty Bowl shenanigans, and their mood carried over into the final game of the season at Pitt. Although they had only a 5-4 record and had been shellacked by Syracuse, 35-0, the Panthers upset the distracted Nittany Lions, 22-8.
Penn State formally accepted the Liberty Bowl invitation after the Pitt game. By the time the game was played on Dec. 19, the players realized they had the opportunity to redeem themselves. The opponent was Alabama, a 7-1-2 team ranked two slots ahead of them in the AP poll at No. 10 and coached by Bear Bryant.
This was the first time an Alabama football team played a team with black players, but the historical milestone was hardly noticed by the media and the public at the time. Two black players were on the roster, senior starting tackle Charlie Janerette and sophomore reserve defensive end Dave Robinson, but Robinson did not dress for the game. Penn State won, 7-0, on a cold and blustery day inside the now-defunct Municipal Stadium, with Stellatella throwing a block on the fake field goal and then kicking the extra point.
Two weeks later in the Cotton Bowl, Syracuse beat No. 4 Texas, 23-14, to clinch the national championship. However, there was one last bit of bad and good luck for the 1959 Liberty Bowl team. Because the final polls were taken in early December, the team remained at No. 12 in the AP rankings despite the win over Alabama. However, the UPI poll had placed the Lions at No. 10 and Alabama at No. 13 before the Liberty Bowl.
So when the members of the 1959 Liberty Bowl team get together at Homecoming, they can brag about being one of only three Penn State teams not coached by Joe Paterno to finish in the top 10 since the AP rankings began in 1936.
"We not only won the game but we beat the great Bear Bryant," said Stellatella, who went on to a career in high school teaching and coaching. "No other Penn State team can say that except the 1959 Liberty Bowl team."
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