Back in August, conventional wisdom had it that the Penn State football team would finish 8-4 for the 2010 regular season.
We now have learned that’s what Joe Paterno thought, too.
That’s what I thought. 8-4. And odds are, that’s what most people thought. Give or take a win either way.
“I thought going into the season — to be very frank with you — I thought we had a shot at being 8-3,” said Paterno, more concerned with the wins than the losses (the likeliest explanation for his 11-game season).
Unconventional wisdom, as David Jones of The Patriot News in Harrisburg had it in preseason, was that the Nittany Lions were going to finish 6-6. And when it comes right down to it, he was as correct about it as Paterno himself.
7-5: HOW IT HAPPENED
Here’s how Paterno broke down his team’s 7-5 regular season record after Saturday’s game, a 28-22 loss to Michigan State in Beaver Stadium that was not as close as the score indicated:
“We had some tough games that included three tough teams on the road. I thought we would probably be better than we were at that stage.”
In 2010, Penn State was the first team to play three road games against winners of a BCS game from the previous season. Those teams? Alabama, Iowa and Ohio State, who crushed the Nittany Lions by an aggregate 86-20.
Interestingly, as the season progressed neither Alabama nor (especially) Iowa looked like the kind of invincible squad that beat down the Lions by similar 24-3 scores in the course of 22 days. The Tide, playing in the powerful SEC, has lost three games, but still looks like an imposing force; there’s no way the Nittany Lions could have hung with Cam Newton the way Alabama did.
Meanwhile, in Iowa City, the wheels have come off the Hawkeyes’ tractor. Iowa lost its last three games and owns the same 7-5 overall record and 4-4 mark in the Big Ten as Penn State.
It’s hindsight, but you have to wonder that if Iowa’s rep and its eight wins over the last nine games against the Lions leading up to the 2010 matchup psyched out Paterno and Penn State a bit.
Ohio State, at 11-1, looks like the team that pounded Penn State 35-0 in the second half of their game in Columbus, not the one that trailed the Lions 14-3 at halftime.
“You had one game where we had a chance to have a very significant victory and we couldn’t handle that,” Paterno said of the meltdown in the Horseshoe.
THE ONE THAT REALLY HURT
But it wasn’t that loss to Ohio State — Penn State’s second in a row and seventh in its last nine games against the Buckeyes — that rankled Paterno the most. The game that ticked him off was the one much of the Nittany Nation figured his team would win, too.
“We lost one game at home that I thought we would win before the season.’
That would be a 33-13 loss to Illinois on Penn State’s Homecoming Day. In retrospect, Paterno has more reason to be disappointed by that loss, perhaps more than any other. The Illini are 6-5, with a 3-3 mark since beating the Nittany Lions. Penn State, even when it was uninspired in the first half of the season, was a more talented team than Illinois.
“There were some games that we were behind and we were able to come back.’
Penn State came from behind twice in 2010, overcoming a 13-9 Temple lead and then roaring back from a 21-0 deficit against Northwestern to secure Paterno’s 400th win. It was Penn State’s biggest comeback at home in Paterno’s 45-year tenure as head coach.
After falling to Illinois, and saddled with a 3-3 record, the Lions could have folded. They almost did.
But, thanks in large part to the inspired play of quarterback Matt McGloin, the Lions caught fire and went on a 4-1 run. The wins were against Minnesota, Michigan, Northwestern and Indiana — none of which hit .500 in Big Ten play, and together had a 24-26 overall record in 2010.
The Lions lost to Ohio State in that stretch, and the hot streak ended on Saturday against Michigan State. OSU and MSU are a combined 22-2. Both are clearly better than the Nittany Lions – although the Lions led one game and were within a TD at game’s end in the other.
THE FINAL TALLY
So, in total the Nittany Lions beat seven teams that were a combined 38-44. That includes FCS school Youngstown State, 3-8 in 2010, and woeful Kent State, which finished 5-7.
The teams Penn State lost to were a combined 44-15.
The Lions’ signature win?
That would have to be Northwestern, based more on the rally and the historical significance than the quality of the opponent. The Wildcats are 7-5 and finished 3-5 in the Big Ten.
An inspired 41-31 victory over Michigan on Halloween Eve might also come to mind, since the Wolverines were 5-2 and ranked No. 25 went they came to Beaver Stadium (yet also riding a two-game losing streak). What of U-M now? A record of 7-5 and 3-5 in the Big Ten, and a coach who may get the axe.
Overall, the Nittany Lions finished tied for fourth in the Big Ten standings, but really a lesser among equals to fellow 4-4 finishers Iowa and Illinois since Penn State lost to them both.
IN SUMMATION
“I think we turned out to be the way I wanted, even though I thought we could’ve had another win or two. I think we played decent football most of the time.”
Paterno is probably right; 7-5 is decent. But hardly elite.
The coach is going to need a convincing victory against a respected opponent in a bowl game for his final statement to ring true.
“I think at the end of the year we became a good team.”
