The Heat Is On . . . and It’s Only August

Now we know why Paul Hackett agreed to this game, why he willingly took his team across the country to play a no-nonsense opponent such as Penn State in what amounts to its metropolitan home.

It’s much more peaceful in the Jersey swamplands, far away from USC fans who want to turn up the heat on Hackett and hold him accountable for all those second-half collapses last year.

That’s fluff stuff compared to the questions swirling around Penn State Coach Joe Paterno.

Paterno has drawn criticism for his refusal to discipline quarterback Rashard Casey, who police said was involved in a fight outside a bar this summer.

For Paterno, it’s a matter of innocent until proven guilty--and Casey has not even been indicted.

“I don’t think there is anything for me to be perplexed about,” Paterno said this week. “If some people out there are perplexed, I am probably perplexed about their perplexing.”

The whole issue obscures the fact that last year might have been one of the worst coaching jobs of Paterno’s career.

After announcing their presence with a fearsome 41-7 demolition of Arizona in the opener, the Nittany Lions could not live up to billing as the nation’s best team.

Paterno didn’t have them focused enough to beat Minnesota in Happy Valley. And after the Gophers wrecked Penn State’s hopes for a national championship, he couldn’t get the Nittany Lions to regroup. They lost their final two regular-season games to Michigan and Michigan State.

Now Paterno has the Casey issue, which creeps into every interview session he holds and has already caused some college football observers to chip away at Paterno’s pedestal.

Imagine that: Joe Paterno facing more fire than Paul Hackett.

In the East, Hackett and the Trojans are more of a novelty. People want to know about Carson Palmer, the Trojans’ bright quarterback prospect. They want to know if the Trojans are soft, the way all those West Coast teams are supposed to be, and how they will react to those big, bad, physical Nittany Lions.

Meanwhile, Hackett and the returning members of his coaching staff are actually coming off their most impressive performance at USC: a victory over Louisiana Tech on Nov. 26.

One day after stuffing themselves on Thanksgiving and only six days after ending their victory famine against UCLA, the Trojans looked hungry again. Their defensive scheme was superb against a Louisiana Tech team that led the nation in passing, and the offense produced 38 points in a 45-19 victory.

The USC football program comes into Sunday’s Kickoff Classic on a three-game winning streak, while Penn State’s lone victory in its last four games was in the Alamo Bowl over Texas A&M.;

Paterno even went so far as to say that USC is “probably a better football team than we are at Penn State.”

But Hackett still toys with risk because he starts the season at full speed, not at home against some Nowhere State, and he threatens to ram his team’s momentum into a brick wall.

“That momentum was more than winning those three games,” Hackett said. “It carried into recruiting, it carried into spring. And you’re right, there’s a danger. Now, if we win, it’s dramatic because it parlays and keeps it going.

“If we don’t win, we have to bounce back.”

There was plenty of bounce in Hackett’s step Friday. He got a look at the shiny trophy awarded to the Kickoff Classic winner and pictured how good it would look in his office. When USC’s sports information director explained the postgame trophy presentation procedures, Hackett looked like a kid envisioning a trip to Disneyland.

The thoughts of how this is such a make-or-break season for him are as far away as the Pacific Ocean.

“There’s a lot of pressure, but I think he’s more excited than anything,” linebacker Markus Steele said. “He knows what the team has done throughout camp and what we’re capable of doing.”

Normally, the way it works in the coaching fraternity is that the established, unimpeachable coaches speak out on behalf of the embattled younger coaches. Here at the Meadowlands, it’s all twisted around, with Hackett asked if he feels for Paterno’s current plight.

“He’s got so much experience and so much history, that I’m sure he just does what he feels comfortable with,” Hackett said. “I don’t know, I can’t . . .

“Someone who’s been two years at USC, he’s been 50 years there, for someone who’s coached six years as a head coach, he’s had 35, I can’t even begin to put myself in his position in terms of those kinds of things. He’s in a totally different world than I’m in, just in his experience in coaching. Other than that, I don’t know.”

You can tell the Trojans liked the notion of playing against Paterno, a sight to behold as if he were like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building or any of the other landmarks the team took in during its boat tour around Manhattan.

“I thought he was going to be here,” running back Petros Papadakis said during USC’s media availability session Friday. “I was kind of excited to see him.”

Paterno and Penn State weren’t scheduled to show up until three hours later, while the Trojans were on the practice field.

And Paterno didn’t bring Casey with him to the media session, knowing all too well that he would be bombarded with non-football questions.

“I don’t think he needs it,” Paterno said. “I don’t need it. Why does he need it?”

What Paterno needs is a break, kind of like Hackett is enjoying this week.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address:j.a.adande@latimes.com.