Joe Paterno was done, the game had passed him by.
He was 78 years old and you would have been hard-pressed to fill a tent city around Beaver Stadium with Penn State fans who believed he should continue coaching the Nittany Lions after they had one winning season from 2000-04.
Since then, Penn State is 57-16 and played in two BCS bowls. And that comeback – as much as anything else – is what makes victory No. 400 for JoePa so impressive.
THE BIG STORY
The arrival of the new millennium brought dark days for Penn State football, the worst of Paterno’s 45 seasons as head coach.
The Nittany Lions had consecutive five-win seasons in 2000 and ’01, righted things a bit by going 9-4 in ’02, then bottomed out the next two seasons – seven wins, three in the Big Ten.
Paterno’s image was turning from sage to curmudgeon. The move to the Big Ten, which at first was a rousing success, eventually changed how and where Penn State needed to recruit. The top players who went on the NFL careers were becoming harder to find on the roster. Paterno had put his son, Jay, in charge of the offense and the kid didn’t seem up to the task.
Cries for change at Penn State grew loud.
“It comes with the territory, it’s just a part of the game,” said defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, who has been part of Paterno’s staff for 32 years. “Some of the things that were said were hurtful. But he never talked about. He knew we were going to stay the course.”
Paterno has said he was asked to step down by Penn State officials after the 2004 season. He insisted his team was close to turning it around.
The next season, Penn State went 11-1, finished No. 3 in the nation.
So what changed?
The recruiting picked up, especially in the mid-Atlantic region. Paterno brought in Galen Hall in 2004 to run the offense, along with Jay Paterno.
But if you ask Bradley the most important thing Paterno did was NOT change.
“Coach has his core values. Sure he’s always trying to do things better, but we never wavered from his philosophy of how Penn State was going to win football games,” Bradley said Sunday in a telephone interview.
Bradley and the rest of Paterno’s staff have seemingly been together forever. Penn State might stumble on the field at times, but continuity has created a program with a foundation as solid as any in the country.
Bradley and Paterno’s other lieutenants would never even hint that Paterno is not totally in charge at Penn State. How true that is hardly matters. The 83-year-old Paterno gives the program an identity and that’s reason enough to keep him around.
When Paterno will call it quits is a constant topic in college football, but mostly these days the conversation centers on his health. In 2006, he was involved in a sideline collision that left him with a broken leg. He needed hip surgery in 2008. This past offseason a stomach ailment laid him up for a while and at Big Ten media day he quite frankly didn’t sound too good.
That combined with a sluggish start to the season, with lopsided losses to Alabama, Iowa and Illinois, started the speculation machine again. Maybe THIS would be Paterno’s last season?
Since then Penn State (6-3) has won three straight. The Lions are at No. 8 Ohio State on Saturday, followed by a game in Landover, Md., against Indiana and a home game with No. 10 Michigan State. At least one more victory seems like a safe bet.
Not bad for a team with only 11 seniors on the roster, one that has started a freshman and a former walk-on at quarterback and has been hit hard by injuries.
Next season, Penn State could be a serious Big Ten contender. Think JoePa will want to walk away from that? And, really, who would want him to at this point?
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
New Mexico won for the first time this season, snapping a nine-game skid by beating Wyoming 34-31 on a last-second field goal by James Aho from 38 yards out.
That gives Lobos coach Mike Locksley two wins in 21 games and it leaves Akron as the only winless team in major college football. The Zips also came close to getting their first win Saturday, falling 37-30 in double overtime to Mid-American Conference rival Ball State.
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QUICK HITS
– Notre Dame and Texas need two wins in their final three games to become bowl eligible and Tennessee needs to win out to get to the required six victories. The last time none of them appeared in a bowl game was 1958. The catch there is Notre Dame didn’t start accepting bowl bids – other than a trip to the 1925 Rose Bowl – until 1969.
– Plenty still needs to learned about Cam Newton’s recruitment and his relationship, if any, with a former Mississippi State player who has been accused of peddling the Auburn quarterback’s service to schools for a big payout. But one thing can be said for sure: SEC schools do love to turn each other in.
– No. 5 LSU has faced a better schedule, but No. 7 Stanford, blending power, speed and the best drop-back passer in the country in Andrew Luck, looks like the best one-loss team.
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BCS PROJECTIONS
Championship game: Auburn vs. Oregon.
Rose Bowl: Wisconsin vs. TCU.
Fiesta Bowl: Nebraska vs. Pittsburgh.
Sugar Bowl: LSU vs. Boise State.
Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Stanford.
The last two might be more wishful thinking than sound BCS logic-based forecasting.
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NEXT WEEK
Steve Spurrier faces his alma mater with the stakes higher than they have ever been. No. 22 South Carolina plays at No. 24 Florida, with the winner taking the SEC East crown and a trip to the conference championship game.
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Ralph D. Russo covers college football for The Associated Press. Write to him at rrusso(ap).org
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