The Lion in Autumn (27 page)

The following day Paterno spoke at another rally, though this one was for the Bush campaign. The president's father, George H. W. Bush, and daughters were, along with the coach, the star attractions at a Robeson Center gathering Friday afternoon.

In introducing Jenna and Barbara Bush, Paterno told the fifteen hundred spectators that the Bush family was “everything you ever wanted in people—courage, conviction.”

When former President Bush, eighty, spoke, he alluded to Paterno's age and troubles.

“I think it's OK when you get to be an older man,” Bush said. “I love him. I love him like a brother.”

There was some talk of Scott Paterno's congressional campaign at the gathering. Privately, Paterno acknowledged his son wasn't going to unseat the popular incumbent, Democrat Tim Holden. So he had already let reporters know he wouldn't be attending Scott's postelection party, scheduled for the Four Points Sheraton in Harrisburg late Tuesday night.

“It's the middle of football season,” he said. “I've got too much work to do.”

Not long after the Bush rally, the coach and team traveled to Columbus. That night at their hotel, the Marriott North, which stood near the confluence of several new highways, ESPN
Classic
showed a replay of the 1995 Penn State–Ohio State game, won by the Buckeyes, 28–25.

Though it had been just nine years, the differences were striking. Paterno seemed far less agitated and restless along the sideline. And the ‘95 Penn State team looked bigger, faster, and infinitely more sure of itself. Anchored by future Pro Bowler Jeff Hartings, its offensive line, even when Ohio State stacked the box with eight and nine defenders, consistently cleared huge gaps for tailback Curtis Enis.

The hotel lobby was surprisingly empty that night. Typically, Penn State fans buzzed inside and outside the team hotel, hoping to see, chat with, or get autographs from players and coaches. But there just didn't seem to be many Penn State fans here. Who could blame them? Who wanted to travel to watch a team that had lost nine straight road games? Besides, late October in Columbus was hardly springtime in Paris.

“I've talked to travel agents back home who said that Penn State's move to the Big Ten has hurt their business,” said David Jones, a
Harrisburg Patriot-News
columnist who had covered Penn State for more than a decade. “I mean, look at the road trips you get. Bloomington? West Lafayette? Iowa City? Champaign? Who wants to go to those places? Especially not when your team stinks.”

The search for ways to explain Penn State's descent was again the topic at the weekly media reception. In Suite 116 at the Marriott, several reporters, photographers, and the bottle of Jack Daniel's waited in vain for Paterno.

The sessions were gaining a momentum of their own. In the absence of the coach, they had become forums for the exchange of opinions and speculation.

Wilkes-Barre's Kellar had been told that a group of parents had informed Curley that unless Paterno stepped aside, they'd see that their sons transferred; Jones heard that Paterno and Jay had been accosted by angry fans as they'd walked home after the Iowa loss; and a source in Old Main told Reading's Scarcella that administrators had contacted Sue Paterno in an effort to gauge her husband's state of mind.

As for reasons for the program's struggles, this week they focused on recruiting. They included Paterno's inability to recruit the “speed states”—Texas, Florida, and California; the fact that the staff had only two black assistants and needed another to aid in recruiting; and the move to the Big Ten, which introduced rivals into territory Penn State used to dominate.

But just days earlier an anonymous Big Ten assistant had told
ESPN.com
that any suggestion Penn State wasn't getting top talent was “a myth.”

“We recruited a lot of their kids, and to be honest, we really wanted some of those guys,” he said. “A few of them looked like Superman. But you watch them on tape now and you're like ‘That's so-and-so? Man, what happened?' These kids aren't developing. It's actually like they're regressing athletically when they get there. That tells me the problem isn't just the coaching in practices, but in the weight room too.”

What none of them knew, though, was that the nation's No. 1 recruit, speedster Derrick Williams of Greenbelt, Maryland, would be driving with his family to State College the following afternoon for an official visit. On Sunday, the Williamses would meet with President Spanier, and with Penn State players and students. They would enjoy lunch at Paterno's house. And though the decision would not be revealed for another two months, they would be won over.

Even as the terrible autumn continued for the Nittany Lions, the seeds of a new season of hope were being sown.

When Penn State's team entered Ohio Stadium early the next morning, a gray and rainy day was about to turn sunny and extremely windy. Though Ohio State also had recently refurbished and expanded its historic football stadium, the game-day atmosphere in Columbus was far more commercial than that at Penn State. Airplanes trailing banners from local car dealerships flew overhead. Commercials played constantly on the giant stadium scoreboard. Sponsors' signs and logos were ubiquitous. And in the narrow streets and tiny parking lots surrounding the stadium, a chaotic festival of capitalism was in full flower.

Those circumstances reflected a couple of chilling statistics for anyone concerned about the commercialization of college sports. Ohio State athletics, after redoing the stadium and constructing new state-of-the-art basketball, hockey, baseball, and track-and-field facilities, owed more than $220 million. The $90-plus million 2004 sports budget—the nation's largest—required annual debt-service payments that topped $16 million.

Once Paterno accompanied his team onto the field for pregame warm-ups, he was extremely busy. These road trips gave all his admirers in those places an opportunity to get close to him. And now his age and uncertain future lent some urgency to their efforts.

He talked with Ohio State coach Jim Tressel while photographers, sprawled on the grass below, snapped their photos. He chatted with Buckeyes assistants, one of whom introduced him to his son, a Buckeyes walk-on. He posed for pictures with the chain-gang crew and with some traveling Blue Band members. And he tested the footing on the wet surface.

Mills was dressed for the game but would not play, which delighted his many critics. Even Jack Ham, the former all-American linebacker at Penn State who now served as Jones's color analyst on radio broadcasts, was privately critical. While telling sportswriters he admired Mills's character a great deal, Ham described the quarterback's arm as “candy-ass.”

Just before the game began, a Penn State fan released a clot of blue-and-white balloons. They rose quickly into the dark sky, buffeted back and forth by the winds, before drifting slowly out of sight.

If nothing else, the Iowa loss had prompted Paterno to make a few
dramatic changes. Concerned that the Hawkeyes might have been stealing sideline signs, the coach mandated that plays would be shuttled in. And for the first time, Hall would be stationed in the upstairs coaches' box, alongside Jay Paterno. With the eyes of countless reporters on them, the two men in the glass-enclosed booth kept their attention focused on the field.

“We felt like [Hall] could do a little better job upstairs,” Paterno explained. “He had always been upstairs when he was an assistant. The play calling was done exactly the same way. They consult on different things. It was a good change of pace and Galen didn't have to listen to me bitch on the sidelines, so it was a good break for him.”

The perception grew stronger that Penn State's byzantine play-calling system—Hall calling the running plays, Jay calling the passes, all with the input of Dick Anderson and, ultimately, Paterno himself—was a hopeless muddle. Asked who had been calling the plays against Iowa, Robinson laughed and said, “God.”

Paterno insisted he had little to do with the play calling once the games started. He said his main input had been to try to keep things simple, to remove plays from the game plan, not add them.

But with an offense that ranked 107th out of 117 Division I-A teams in scoring and passing efficiency and 86th in rushing, the pressure on the staff intensified. Reports of a rift between Hall and the younger Paterno continued, reports the head coach continued to deny.

Only Bill Kenney, who, along with Anderson, coached the line, remained on the sideline among the offensive staff. So it was he who had to endure Paterno's frequent questions and complaints.

“Bill Kenney has to take all the brunt now,” Paterno joked.

Despite the show of self-deprecating humor, Paterno continued to bristle about the negative sniping at his offensive staff, criticism that stung all the worse when it was directed at his son.

“I just don't think it's fair,” he said. “If there's a criticism to be made of the coaches, I think I'm the guy to do it. If I allow people to criticize the offensive coaches or criticize the defensive coaches for something here, something there, I don't think you can have a good organization,” he said. “I really don't.”

On a Penn State football blog, one fan summed up the feelings of many.

“The fans want Oe Paterno,” he wrote. “That's Joe Paterno without the Jay.”

Ohio State was experiencing a down year too. The Buckeyes were 4–3, 1–3 in the Big Ten. Penn State, however, had lost five straight at Ohio Stadium, not having won there since 1978.

The game began with Robinson at quarterback. And when the first play was a rollout run by the junior, a Penn State photographer in the press box yelped with joy. He had won a $40 bet, correctly anticipating that Robinson would run right on his first play under center. “He does it every time,” said the photographer.

Without Mills, Paterno's game plan was heavy with runs. Keeping the ball on the ground, the Lions moved to Ohio State's 31 on their opening possession before Robinson's sideline pass was intercepted by Buckeyes cornerback Ashton Youboty.

There were no passes and no first downs on Penn State's next drive. But Kapinos's punt was returned 67 yards for a touchdown by Ted Ginn Jr. Ginn raced untouched into the end zone, displaying the kind of breakaway speed the Nittany Lions sorely missed. For the game, the Buckeyes' return teams would outgain Penn State's by a total of 192 to – 1.

“Those guys,” said Kapinos, who fanned on Ginn late in the return, “are freak athletes.”

Robinson's next pass, a screen to Terrance Phillips on a third-and- 7 from his own 23, was intercepted too. Strong safety Tyler Everett returned it 24 yards for a score. With 3:41 left in the opening quarter, Ohio State had run four plays, gained five yards, and accumulated no first downs. And the Buckeyes led, 14–0.

Robinson, who had ended the previous game with two interceptions and a fumble on his final three plays, had thrown two interceptions in three attempts in this one.

No one could blame the defense. While Penn State now had given
the ball away twenty-three times this season, its defense had permitted only two touchdowns and three field goals on those turnovers.

Paterno was experiencing his standard sideline agita—reacting angrily when Rubin dropped what would have been a first-down completion on a third-and-15 pass from Robinson; repeating the tantrum when Phillips dropped another one later; throwing his hands up in the air after the second interception; collaring Kenney for a heated exchange. ESPN, which televised the game, kept track of his pacing, calculating that the coach logged more than four miles during the course of the game.

At one point, when he made the decision to go for a first down on a fourth-and-short, Paterno disgustedly waved “go ahead” to his players, as if this woeful offense had forced him to abandon all his cautious instincts.

After the two lightning scores, the Ohio Stadium bell tolled joyously for the crowd of 104,947. But for Penn State and its season, it sounded ominously like a death knell.

A three-yard TD run by Tony Hunt in the second quarter (only the third Penn State TD since September 18) was negated immediately by Branden Joe's four-yard scoring run on the ensuing drive.

The Nittany Lions' defense had controlled Ohio State's attack throughout the game, but the Lions still trailed 21–7 when Paterno made another bizarre fourth-quarter decision. With under ten minutes to play, his team trailing by 14 points and facing a fourth-and-goal at the Ohio State 3, he decided to go for a field goal. At that point, the possibility that the Big Ten's worst offense might score twice more in the closing minutes seemed as remote as a Ralph Nader victory in the coming Tuesday's national election.

“I thought we were playing really good defense with 9:30 to go,” he later explained. “I figured we'd get on the board, put some pressure on them rather than have to score twice, and get a two-point play to win. That's one of those things you're never sure you're right, but I think I'd probably do it the same way again.”

Gould's 21-yarder made it 21–10. Penn State would have one more possession before time ran out—in that day's game, and on their faded dreams of the postseason.

The Nittany Lions had now lost five straight games for just the second time in Paterno's career, the other streak having come a season earlier.