UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (EYT) – If you are a Penn State fan it will go down as a goal-line stand for history.

(Photo Cam Brown had a big game defensively for Penn State. Photo by Paul Burdick. Check out more of Burdick’s work here)

If you are a Pitt fan, you may want a new head coach.

Either way, it was everything a rivalry is supposed to be.

Leading 17-10 late in the fourth quarter, Penn State held off three straight Pitt plays from the 1-yard line, and then Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi made the decision to kick a field goal instead of trying to tie the game with 4:54 to play only to watch his kicker shank the try off the upright.

In the end, the Panthers had one last gasp to tie the game but a Hail Mary into the end zone by quarterback Kenny Pickett from the Nittany Lions 26-yard line as time expired was incomplete giving Penn State a 17-10 win in the 100th — and at least for a long time last — meeting of the storied rivals.

“Overall, (we are) happy to get a win against a good football team,” Penn State head coach James Franklin, whose teams went 3-1 against Pitt winning three win a row in the revival of the long-dormant rivalry, said. “Give those guys a bunch of credit. (They) are a good football team. They obviously had a plan, and they did a really good job of executing that plan.”

Pitt did do a great job of executing the plan until the Panthers didn’t.

After Taysir Mack made a great grab at the 1-yard line of a Pickett heave on second-and-19 from the Penn State 30-yard line, things bogged down for Pitt.

On first down, Pickett tried to roll out, but Cam Brown’s pressure forced an incompletion.

On second down, out of the shotgun, Pickett tried to run it in but was stopped cold at the 1-yard line by Garrett Taylor and Jesse Luketa.

Then on third down, the Panthers tried another pass play. But again Brown hurried the throw into another incompletion.

Now facing fourth-and-perhaps-the-game from the 1-yard line on a day where his team struggled to run the ball — Penn State limited Pitt to 24 total yards rushing on 25 carries — Narduzzi elected to send out Alex Kessman to try a 19-yard field goal to bring the Panthers within four.

But kicking from an extreme angle, Kessman’s kick hit the upright keeping Penn State’s lead at a touchdown.

“I wanted to win the football game,” Narduzzi said. “It’s a two-possession game as far as we have to score twice to win the football game. I don’t question that decision at all, really.

“We could have gone for it there and not gotten it. I thought if we kick a field goal there, it will be a two-possession game. We need two scores. A field goal is a good play, and then you come back and score again.”

Narduzzi defended the two passes plays from the one by pointing out his team’s lack of success running the ball.

“Just looking at the success we had running the ball on that front seven, we didn’t have much success,” Narduzzi said. “Again, we can look back at all our calls, all the armchair quarterbacks, you guys got those armchair desks there. It’s easy to make those decisions. We were throwing the ball. We threw for over 300 yards. We felt like we had some plays open.”

Narduzzi’s counterpart, Franklin, wasn’t surprised that Pitt tried the field goal.

“The decision they made was making sure they get points,” Franklin said. “They started at the 1-yard line and were going backward. If they get points at that time, the next time they get the ball, a touchdown wins the game for them rather than tie. It’s hard for me to sit here and say exactly what he was thinking. But the touchdown would have given them the win. They had confidence in their defense that they would stop us and get back on the field.”

While Franklin wasn’t surprised Pitt tried the field goal, he did point to that play as being big for his team.

“When you’re able to stop someone at the 1-yard line, ger them moving backward and then miss the field goal, that is significant in the game.”

Pitt did get one last chance after Penn State picked up one first down but was forced to punt the ball away with the Panthers taking over at their own 16-yard line with 1:56 to play.

Facing fourth-and-12 at the Pitt 35-yard line, Pickett, who finished the game 35 of 51 for 372 yards, heaved a ball up the sideline that Mack made another great catch on just getting his foot in bounds while falling down at the Penn State 37-yard line. Mack had 12 catches for 125 yards.

Three plays later, facing third-and-10, Pickett threw an 11-yard pass to Mack to the Penn State 26-yard line with nine seconds to play.

A short pass then fell incomplete following a Penn State timeout, giving Pitt one last chance with five seconds left. But Pickett’s throw to the back middle of the end zone was knocked down by Brown to secure the victory for Penn State.

“I feel like we finally, as a defense, came together and got the stop that we needed,” Brown said. “I feel like going forward, as a defense, you guys are going to see it more often.”

The game was an old-fashion Pitt-Penn State slobberknocker with the Nittany Lions taking a 7-0 lead late in the first quarter on a 1-yard Devyn Ford touchdown run that was set up by an 85-yard jaunt by Journey Brown that got Penn State out of the shadow of its own goal line following a Pitt punt that was downed at the 2-yard line.

Pitt answered back with an 85-yard drive of its own capped by a 25-yard Kessman field goal with 6:34 left in the first half before a 3-yard Vincent Davis run gave the Panthers a 10-7 lead with 3:13 to play after a 78-yard drive.

Penn State, however, got life going into the locker room when Jordan Stout, the big legged transfer kicker from Virginia Tech, hit a school-record 57-yard field goal with one second left in the half a play after Sean Clifford had taken an ill-timed sack.

The Nittany Lions then put together their best drive of the game midway through the third quarter going 88 yards on 13 plays capped by a 13-yard touchdown run by Noah Cain, one of four backs Penn State rotated on the day. Cain ran for 40 yards on six carries.

“We have confidence in all four backs, and they all did some really good things, things that jump out in my mind,” Franklin said. (It’s) a bunch of guys doing some really good things for us.”

Brown led Penn State’s runners with 10 carries for 109 with Ricky Slade, the opening-day starter, running four times for four yards but catching a 40-yard pass that helped set up the field goal at the end of the half.

Penn State needed its back to step up, as Clifford struggled in his third start going 14 of 30 for 222 yards while taking three sacks and being under duress much of the game.

“I need to get better,” Clifford said. “I missed my shots today, and that on me. It’s not on anybody else. I need to have an enhanced focus during the week on shots (downfield). You know you get used to hitting big plays. I wouldn’t say that during the week I lost focus on that, but I think that I got a little comfortable.”

Pitt (1-2) returns to action Saturday when it hosts another ranked opponent in UCF, while Penn State (3-0) has the week off before playing at Maryland Friday, Sept. 27.