Terrelle Pryor proved on Saturday that you can go home again.

And it doesn’t hurt if you take the Ohio State defense with you.

Pryor, a Jeannette, Pa., native, ran for a touchdown and threw for two – including a 62-yard bomb to DeVier Posey -- as No. 15 Ohio State knocked off No. 11 Penn State 24-7 before 110,033 Saturday at Beaver Stadium.

The win allows Ohio State (8-2, 5-1) to keep its hopes of a fifth straight Big Ten championship alive. The Buckeyes can clinch at least a share of the title and the conference’s Rose Bowl bid with a win over Iowa next Saturday. OSU can win the conference title outright with wins over Iowa and Michigan to end the season. Iowa dropped from the ranks of the unbeaten with a 17-10 home loss to Northwestern on Saturday.

“November is for contenders,” said OSU coach Jim Tressel. “We always say that. That’s why it’s hard to get too ecstatic right now because you know the Hawkeyes are coming to town.”

In the days leading up to OSU’s had-to-have showdown at Penn State, Pryor talked about how he had yet to lead Ohio State to a big win in his two seasons as the starting quarterback. That changed Saturday as Pryor completed 8 of 17 passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns and also carried the ball five times for 50 yards and a touchdown.

“Nothing to take away from Penn State, but it was big to just come home,” Pryor said. “I haven’t been back to Pennsylvania in a really long time. There’s a lot of people who came here to watch me play. We love going away because it’s all 70 of us and a Red Sea. It felt good.”

In March 2008, Pryor selected Ohio State over his homestate school Penn State. But, playing last year as a true freshman, he had two costly turnovers in OSU’s 13-6 home loss to the Nittany Lions. In the days leading up to this game there was talk a Penn State student group would circulate “Terrelle Cryer” shirts, alluding to the postgame scene from a year ago.

“I heard that Coach Paterno stopped the whole thing,” Pryor said. “I would have liked to get one of those T-shirts. It’s all fun and games. When you go somewhere else, they have to look for something to rag on you about. I did mess up last year. You learn from that type of stuff.”

The OSU defense limited Penn State (8-2, 4-2) to 201 yards total offense and just one touchdown, a 1-yard quarterback sneak by Daryll Clark. Clark was 12 of 28 passing for 125 yards with an interception, thrown to OSU linebacker Ross Homan.

“I just think for the whole ball game, they gave us a good licking,” said Penn State coach Joe Paterno. “They played better than we did today.”

Defensive end Cameron Heyward led the OSU defense with 11 tackles, including three for losses and two sacks. Homan and fellow linebacker Brian Rolle each had 10 tackles, while defensive end Thaddeus Gibson added six tackles and a sack.

“We were just relentless,” Gibson said. “We talked about it all week. We had to bring relentless defense and relentless effort and we got it done.”

Ohio State came into the game as the national leader in three-and-outs on defense at 5.8 per game. They improved that mark by forcing eight three-and-outs by the Nittany Lions.

“Defensively, they were going to have a tough time moving it on us,” Tressel said. “Cam and Thad are great players and so are the other nine guys that are in the lineup with them. They have a lot of confidence in one another and they came ready to play.”

The OSU offense had 24 points and 353 yards total offense against a Penn State defense that came in ranked No. 1 nationally in scoring defense (9.3 points per game) and No. 5 in total defense (254.8 yards per game). The Buckeyes did not allow any sacks and did not commit any turnovers.

Posey had two catches for 77 yards, including his long touchdown. He also had a pair of runs on lateral passes totaling 19 yards. Brandon Saine had 20 carries for 68 yards. Boom Herron added 58 yards on 16 carries.

Ohio State had the ball to open the game, but could not get a first down. Punter Jon Thoma uncorked a 55-yard punt, pinning Penn State back to its own 16-yard line.

On first down there, OSU’s Heyward and Todd Denlinger teamed for a 6-yard sack of Clark. Three plays later, the Lions punted. OSU’s Ray Small fielded it at midfield and darted left. He got loose on the sideline and brought the punt back 41 yards to the PSU 9-yard line.

“It was a great feeling,” Small said of the first of his two big returns. “That’s what Coach Tressel always preaches – the special teams. For me to come down and have such a big impact on the game early was great.”

The Buckeyes needed two plays to find the end zone. After Saine picked up 2 yards on first down, Pryor was flushed by PSU linebacker Navorro Bowman on a second-down pass attempt. He took off around right end and was able to dive and get the ball to the goal line for the 7-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead with 11:47 left in the first quarter.

On their next possession, OSU drove from its own 21 down to the PSU 26. Posey had gains of 7 and 12 yards on lateral passes from Pryor and Herron ripped off a 16-yard run behind a block from fullback Zach Boren. But on third-and-8 at the 26, Pryor tossed to Herron late on the option and he was dragged down for a 3-yard loss at the 29.

Instead of having new kicker Devin Barclay attempt a 46-yard field goal, Tressel opted to take a delay penalty and had Thoma attempt a pooch punt. But the ball went into the end zone for a touchback.

The OSU defense held Penn State to three-and-out each of the first three times the Lions had the ball.

But the fourth PSU possession was a good one. The Lions, aided by a pass interference penalty on OSU’s Devon Torrence, drove 71 yards in 11 plays to the game-tying touchdown. Clark hit Graham Zug in stride on a screen pass for a 31-yard gain down to the OSU 29. Torrence was flagged for interfering with PSU’s Derek Moye in the end zone.

The Lions got a first down at the OSU 2. But three plays netted just 1 yard. Finally, on fourth-and-goal, Clark tried a quarterback sneak. He reached the ball into the plane of the goal line and was given the call for the touchdown that tied it at 7-7 with 12:28 left in the first half. The touchdown was subject to instant replay, but the call stood.

OSU came right back with a 12-play, 61-yard march. The key play was Pryor’s 22-yard pass to Sanzenbacher down the seam to the PSU 23-yard line. PSU’s Nick Sukay landed a big hit on Sanzenbacher, but he held on for the first down. OSU appeared to have a big gain on a screen to Small, but Sanzenbacher was flagged for holding. OSU had to settle for Barclay’s 37-yard field goal and a 10-7 lead with 5:54 left in the half.

Neither team could mount a serious threat before the half or for the balance of the third quarter for that matter. OSU took over after a Penn State punt on its own 38-yard line. On first down there, Pryor dropped and threw a bomb down the left sideline to Posey. Posey got behind PSU’s D’Anton Lynn and Shelton McCullough and hauled the pass in in stride at the 15 and glided into the end zone for the 62-yard touchdown that stretched the OSU lead to 17-7 with 1:47 left in the third quarter.

“I was like, ‘If he hits me, I’m catching this,’ ” Posey said. “I didn’t feel anyone (around) and I just took it in.”

OSU had run the ball on 15 of its 16 first down situations prior to the deep pass.

“We had been unbalanced,” Tressel said. “We’d been running a lot on first downs. We felt if we had good field position it was time to strike. We were out near the 40. We felt we could get behind them.”

The OSU defense forced another Penn State punt, which Small returned 45 yards to the Penn State 47-yard line. The Buckeyes needed 10 plays to cover those 47 yards. Pryor converted a third-and-11 with a 12-yard run. Small also picked up 12 yards on a reverse. Finally on third-and-5 at the PSU 6, Pryor rolled right and hit Saine short of the goal line. He dove over a PSU defender for the end zone and got the 6-yard touchdown that put the Buckeyes ahead 24-7 with 9:37 left in the game.

Homan’s interception came just 17 seconds later at 9:20, sending many PSU fans to the exit.

When the game ended, Tressel met the venerable Paterno at midfield.

“Joe, you know him, he’s the perfect gentleman,” Tressel said. “His comment was, ‘Hey, Jimmy your kids played really well.’ And that’s the way he is. He’s great for the game. He’s a legend. Sometimes I pinch myself to think that I’ve had a chance to coach against him.”

The OSU players then congregated in the northeast corner of the stadium, where the largest quadrant of OSU fans were sitting. They chanted, danced and jumped up and down in celebration of the school’s first win over a team rated at least this high since the 2006 win over then-No. 2 Michigan.

Also Notable

* OSU lost starting right tackle J.B. Shugarts to an apparent foot injury. Jimmy Cordle moved from left tackle to right tackle and Andy Miller filled in at left tackle. Marcus Hall also provided support at tackle.

It is unclear what Shugarts' status will be for next week's game with Iowa.

* Ohio State now has the lead in the all-time series at 13-12. Since Penn State entered the Big Ten in 1993, Ohio State owns an edge of 11-6 in the series.

The series is now tied 5-5 in games played in University Park, Pa. OSU leads 8-6 in Columbus. Penn State won the only neutral site game at the 1980 Fiesta Bowl.

Penn State was denied in its bid to win back-to-back games over OSU for the first time since joining the Big Ten. OSU has now won six of the last eight in the series as well.

* The teams have played 21 times since 1975. In 19 of those meetings, at least one of the teams was ranked. Of those 19 games, the highest ranked team has won 17 times. The only other "upset" was in 2005, when No.  16 Penn State beat No. 6 Ohio State 17-10 in State College. (Neither team was ranked in the 2000 and 2004 match-ups.)

* This game was the first-ever regular season match-up between coaches who total 600-plus career wins between them with Paterno (391) and Tressel (now 226).

Tressel is now 6-3 against Penn State, while Paterno is now 8-13 against Ohio State.

* OSU evened its mark against ranked teams this season to 1-1. In nine years under Tressel, OSU is now 35-13 against top-25 opponents.

* Tressel is now 24-4 in November games at Ohio State. His OSU teams are also 31-10 in road games and 27-8 in Big Ten road games.

* Ohio State has won 17 of its last 18 Big Ten road games.

* The crowd figure was the fourth largest in the 300-game history of Beaver Stadium.

* Ohio State returns home to host Iowa. The Hawkeyes (9-1, 5-1) fell from the ranks of the unbeaten with a 17-10 loss at home to Northwestern. Next week’s game will be televised regionally by ABC with a  3:30 p.m. start. A win in that game would put Ohio State in the Rose Bowl for the first time since the 1996 season.

Other Links

Click here for Dave Biddle’s What We Learned column. Click here for Jeff Rapp’s in-game blog. Click here for video of Pryor’s postgame press conference. Click here for video of Tressel’s postgame press conference. Click here for the box score from ESPN.com.

Click here for the Penn State edition of Bucknuts Postgame Live.