His Paterno Instincts Should Have Known Better

Joe Paterno is definitely ready to join the Big Ten.

I hate to second-guess the most successful active coach in college football, but after seeing Saturday’s 19-14 loss to USC, my first thought was that the smartest thing the Penn State coach did was to run off the field wearing dark glasses.

Paterno took a page right out of the official Big Ten Conference handbook.

Instructions For Coaching in Big Ten

Go West for big game.

Come close to winning big game.

Do something goofy to lose big game.

Go East.

Hey, I thought Joe Paterno would be immune to this sort of thing. Never dreamed Joe would make the kind of crazy call he made Saturday with 9 1/2 minutes to play. You know, a Bo Schembechler Visits Sunny California kind of call.

Pass on fourth-and-inches?

At USC’s goal line?

In the fourth quarter?

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

It pains me to see it. Besides being the winningest Division I coach in the business and a decent human being, Joseph Paterno, 63, is a distinguished faculty member who holds honorary degrees from three universities, has pledged a $150,000 personal endowment to Penn State’s libraries, has testified repeatedly before Congress regarding collegiate academics and has even seconded the nomination of a President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, at the 1988 Republican convention.

I like Joe Paterno. I’d side with Joe against a volcano.

But, it being my sworn duty to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what I witness at weekend football games, I am obligated to say that what I saw Saturday was a group of impressionable young people who could have used a little more Paterno guidance. Tony Sacca, his 20-year-old quarterback, actually talked the coach into trying that wacky pass.

Joe, sometimes you’re too nice a guy.

“It’s my fault,” Paterno said. “None of the other coaches wanted to run it.”

“It was a good play,” Sacca said. “Just didn’t pan out.”

“We were this far,” tight end Al Golden said, spreading his hands a foot apart.

Quickly, here’s the set-up:

Trailing, 19-7, Penn State gives ball to Gary Brown. Brown runs 32 yards to USC nine. Next play, Brown runs eight yards to USC one.

Running game’s running smoothly.

But uh-oh, on second down, Penn State gives ball to Sam Gash, who goes nowhere. On third down, Penn State gives ball to Leroy Thompson, who goes nowhere.

So, on fourth down, Penn State quarterback calls time out and goes over to advise coach, who has been coaching Penn State for 24 years. Quarterback says: Let’s pass. Coach says: OK, kid. Said Sacca later: “After we’d run it three times and not made it, I thought, what the heck, we’d better try something else.”

Evidently, Sacca forgot that Penn State had just run 40 yards on two plays. Evidently, it never occurred to anyone that the something else Penn State could have tried was Gary Brown.

“Don’t ask me,” Brown said. “That’s a coach thing. I’d have liked to stay on the ground, yeah. But I just do what my coach tells me to do.”

Sacca called a fake handoff and a “pop” pass to Golden over the middle.

Only somebody from USC pops Golden instead, knocking him off his feet at the line of scrimmage.

And Sacca gets chased by USC’s Craig Hartsuyker and Kurt Barber halfway to Glendale.

Penn State gets nothing, gives up the ball, then scores on its next possession to get within five points. That’s how it ends.

Scores on a two-yard run, by the way.

Oh, well. Happens to the best of them.

“You don’t question Joe Paterno calls,” Penn State linebacker Mark D’Onofrio said. “The man’s been down too many roads for anybody to be disagreeing with him.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Golden said. “Didn’t seem like such a bad call at the time. USC rose to the occasion, I guess. Man, we gotta be the best 0-2 team in the country.”

Yes, Joe Paterno is 0-2.

Such a thing has happened to him only once since 1965. Joe knows football. Joe’s won 220 games. Joe’s as good as it gets. Joe goes out there in his starched white shirt with the gold pen in the pocket and his rolled-up cuffs and his clean white socks and coaches the pants off most people.

This simply wasn’t his day.

He even ordered Penn State to punt once with the ball on USC’s 32. Kid kicked the ball beyond Glendale. Ball was brought back to the 20, causing Paterno to remove his glasses and rub his eyes.

Tough day at the gridiron.

Of course, things will get better soon for Joe and his team.

Couple of years from now, they’ll be playing Northwestern.