It started Sunday night. A group of students pitched tents outside of Gate A at Beaver Stadium so they can have front-row seats for Saturday's game against Ohio State. The new community is dubbed "Paternoville." An influx of speed (registration) has helped Joe Paterno's team race to a 5-0 start, but is it all a mirage? (subscription, so story is located in comments).
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Has Paterno Restored Lions' Roar?
It started Sunday night. A group of students pitched tents outside of Gate A at Beaver Stadium so they can have front-row seats for Saturday's game against Ohio State. The new community is dubbed "Paternoville." An influx of speed (registration) has helped Joe Paterno's team race to a 5-0 start, but is it all a mirage? (subscription, so story is located in comments).
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Rejuvenated or mirage?
At 5-0, Nittany Lions believe they’re back on track
Bob Baptist
Columbus Dispatch
Matt Rice noticed the difference walking on campus.
"Beat Ohio State," the sign read.
The fifth-year defensive end was hard-pressed to remember the last time a football game was as important to Penn State fans.
"I heard Sunday night that there were at least 10 students already camped out (at the stadium) for tickets," Rice said yesterday. "That right there sums it all up. There’s definitely a lot of support here, and we’re lovin’ it."
When No. 16 Penn State plays host to No. 6 Ohio State on Saturday night, the resurgent Nittany Lions will put the nation’s third-longest winning streak (seven games) on the line. After a 44-14 demolition of Minnesota last weekend, they are in the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time since the start of the 2003 season. ESPN will not only televise the game nationally but originate its College GameDay show from there for the first time since August 1999. A pep rally is scheduled Friday night. Students are planning a "whiteout" in their seating section, a blizzard of white T-shirts and deafening noise they hope will throw the Ohio State offense off its game.
"This has been our focus since we ended the season last year," Rice said. "Any time you found two football players together, they were talking about putting Penn State back on the map. It feels real good being back."
But is it?
Is Penn State back to being the program that finished in the upper half of the Big Ten standings its first 10 years in the conference, won the championship in 1994 and was a force every Saturday.
Or is it still not much better than the teams that won three Big Ten games the past two seasons? Has it parlayed a schedule of South Florida, Cincinnati, Central Michigan, Northwestern and Minnesota into a deceiving 5-0 start? Will it be exposed as a pretender by Ohio State and Michigan the next two weekends?
"Are we for real? I’m not going to tell you we’re for real," running back Tony Hunt said. "Y’all watch the games. You’re going to think whatever you want to think.
"But I think we proved something (last) week and I think we have a great opportunity to prove something big this week. I’ll just kind of let the game speak for itself."
If the Nittany Lions beat the Buckeyes, safety Chris Harrell said, it will prove "we can probably play with anyone in the country."
Some evidence suggests they already can.
The first Bowl Championship Series rankings will not be released until Oct. 17, but the computers and humans whose numbers factor into them are out and they do not agree on how real Penn State is. The Harris and coaches’ polls have the Nittany Lions 19 th and 18 th. But their average rank in the computer ratings is fourth, and two list them No. 1.
Even coach Joe Paterno doesn’t think they’re that real.
"We are OK," he said. "We are not there yet and are not great, but we are OK."
Paterno, who is 78, said he never saw his program in as deep a hole as others perceived and portrayed it to be.
"We have never been very far away," he said. "I have never felt that we were desperate or anything like that. I have always been comfortable that we had good, solid kids. We may not have had one or two kids that could change the game around for us."
They do now. Freshmen receivers Derrick Williams, Justin King and Deon Butler have helped Penn State average 36.6 points and 457 yards. Last season, the Nittany Lions averaged 17.7 points and 310.7 yards, fewest in the Big Ten. They finished 4-7 overall and 2-6 in the conference despite the defense not allowing more than 21 points in any game.
"We were worried going into games," linebacker Paul Posluszny said. "This year, I think we’re a lot more confident with ourselves and our teammates. We just feel going into each game that we have the ability to win. If they’re going to come down to the wire, we have that confidence to know we can win these games."
Case in point was a 34-29 win at Northwestern on Sept. 24 in which Penn State overcame a 16-point deficit. The lead changed hands three times in the last nine minutes. Michael Robinson had a 36-yard touchdown pass to Williams with 51 seconds left to win the game.
"That (senior) class has been through some tough times," Northwestern coach Randy Walker said. "Joe’s done a great job of holding them together and they’re off and running. They’ve got a lot of things going for them right now."
But can they keep it going against Ohio State and Michigan?
bbaptist@dispatch.com
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