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Paterno will weather the storm
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Jack's take, give us yours. Whenever one of Bob Knight's myriad apologists offers some nonsensical rationalization for the coach's behavior, I have a two-word answer: Joe Paterno. Paterno has won national championships. Paterno's players graduate. Paterno's players stay out of the police log. Paterno gives lots of money to his university. Paterno is crusty, conservative, old-fashioned. But what separates him from Knight is that Paterno has carved out his legendary career without resigning from the human race, as Knight has. But bad times will find you if you hang around long enough, and bad, bad times have come to Paterno, the storied scion of Happy Valley. After two games, Penn State is the most humiliated big-time team in the land, having followed an opening 29-5 loss to USC with Saturday's 24-6 drubbing by that powerhouse, Toledo. In four previous games at Beaver Stadium against Mid-American Conference teams, Paterno's teams, known for not running it up, had won by a combined score of 219-34.
Worse, a few cracks in the wall of solidarity that usually surrounds Paterno's program emerged after Saturday's games. Defensive tackle Jimmy Kennedy said after the game that Toledo's players told him they learned everything about Penn State's defense by watching film, a subtle knock on Paterno's new defensive coordinator, Tom Bradley. Backup tailback Larry Johnson wasn't so subtle. "We have coaches who have been here 20 to 30 years," said Johnson, whose father, Larry, coaches Penn State's defensive line, "and it seems like things never change. Everything we do is too predictable. Opponents can pull out tapes from '92 or '93 and we run the same offense. Same plays, same system." That some players think Joe Pa's offense is overly conservative is not exactly front-page news. But with these two losses have come different implications, i.e., that Paterno is in over his head because he's over the hill. I'm not ready to say that's a fair criticism, but it's a fact that Paterno's program is showing wear and tear. The Nits used to manufacture pro offensive linemen (Ron Heller, Mike Munchak, Sean Farrell, Bill Dugan, Keith Dorney) but they are now close to atrocious in that department, a disaster for a team that favors smash-mouth football. Casey is a rollout quarterback in a dropback system. The Lions are weak at the skill positions; witness the dozen or so drive-stopping dropped passes in the first two games. There are nine new defensive starters on a team that lost the NFL's two top draft picks, Courtney Brown and LaVar Arrington. Paterno will do well to get to 7-5, his worst record in the '90s, and faces the more realistic prospect of 5-7 or 4-8, his first losing season since '88. As the year progresses, what I'll be looking for, though, is how Joe Pa handles the adversity. He'll be testy at times and maybe downright tyrannical in private -- if I were Larry Johnson, I'd keep my helmet on in the locker room for a while -- but I bet Paterno gets through it with his dignity intact and without any embarrassed faces in Penn State's administration. Take notes, Knight fans. Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the
writer.
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