After taking a hard hit from a Notre Dame defender, Penn State quarterback Todd Blackledge moved to the sidelines to shake it off.

"I just remember I had just thrown the pass," he said. "The helmet came up under my chin a little bit. He got me good. But I don't remember who it was."

The date was November 12, 1982, and Penn State's title hopes were on the line in South Bend, Ind., after a disastrous fifth-week loss to Alabama.

With his team in need of a win against Notre Dame, Blackledge re-entered the game after sitting out just one series.

Though he admittedly felt "woozy" from the hit, Blackledge still had the presence of mind to pull off a game-changing play that preserved Penn State's national title chances.

Early in the fourth quarter, Penn State trailed Notre Dame 14-13. Blackledge and the Penn State offense were sitting on the Notre Dame 48-yard line. Blackledge's mind was still cloudy.

However, he didn't play like an unsteady quarterback. Instead, he strode to the line of scrimmage and immediately recognized a defense he could exploit. In a moment of clarity, Blackledge decided to make a quick change.

"That play was an audible at the line of scrimmage," he said. "They gave us a different look defensively ... I checked to a play where [receivers] ran four takeoffs."

The play he called was relatively simple. Four men, including running back Curt Warner as a slot receiver, broke downfield. In the fray, Blackledge saw his running back wide open.

He rifled off a pass to Warner for a 48-yard touchdown strike that put Penn State up 19-14.

"I got him the football, and he did the rest," Blackledge said.

A safety and a field goal later, Penn State finished off Notre Dame 24-13 to keep their title run alive.

"If we would have lost that one, we would have been done at that point," said Blackledge, who is now a college football television broadcaster for ESPN and lives with his family in Canton, Ohio.

Notre Dame, under the direction of second-year head coach Gerry Faust, was 6-1-1 heading into its game against Penn State. Despite the record, the Fighting Irish weren't considered to be in the hunt for a national title.

However, a win against Penn State would have put Notre Dame back in the mix. The night before the game, representatives from the Orange, Sugar and Cotton Bowls declared they wanted the Irish in their bowl game if Notre Dame upset Penn State.

Even though his team was losing late in the game, that year's Davey O'Brien Award winner said there was never a real sense of urgency against Notre Dame.

"They had the tradition and the history behind them," Blackledge said, "but they weren't having the greatest of years. We just felt like if we kept our poise and kept working at things, things would get turned around."

After that game, Penn State beat rival Pittsburgh to earn a trip to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, a game that matched up No. 2 Penn State with No. 1 Georgia.

The Lions defeated Georgia 27-23 to win their first recognized national championship.

When Penn State was independent, as Notre Dame still is today, the game had a lot more bearing on national title hopes.

This year's matchup between the two powers, the first since 1992, won't carry as much weight with Penn State's Big Ten affiliation.

Still, Blackledge is happy to see the series revisited.

"It's great for college football," he said.