Big Ten Upheaval Has Them Smiling in Happy Valley
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Perhaps we should have trusted the old man.
Joe Paterno, after all, seems to have had as much advanced insight into the wacky Big Ten as anyone. And why not? At 78, the Penn State coach has surely seen seasons like this one before, even if few others have.
The Big Ten entered the season on an upswing, poised to have its three superpowers – Michigan, Ohio State, and Iowa – play a role in the national championship picture. But at the season’s midpoint, those schools have stumbled out to a 10-7 record while Paterno’s unheralded Nittany Lions sit atop the league standings at 6-0 after dispatching Ohio State at home Saturday night.
After maintaining their top 10 ranking in the polls despite an early loss to no. 2 Texas, the Buckeyes’ trip to Happy Valley to was supposed to expose Paterno’s team as the beneficiary of a soft schedule. But the 17-10 Penn State win means the end of Ohio State’s national title aspirations and confirms Paterno’s preseason instincts about his team. Penn State, one of the giants of college football throughout most of the 1980s and 90s, is indeed back.
Penn State’s rise came as Michigan fell to 3-3 after losing to Minnesota for the first time since 1986. Having once again been dropped from the AP top 25, the Wolverines may struggle just to make a bowl game this season. Meanwhile, Iowa was unmasked in early season blowout losses to Iowa State and Ohio State, while Purdue, thought to have a schedule that could make it a conference contender should one of the “big three” falter, sits at 2-3 after back-to-back home losses.
Penn State is the biggest surprise in the conference, but it’s not the only one. Things have been so topsy-turvy in the Big Ten that teams like Wisconsin have gone from pretender (unranked in the preseason) to contender (no. 14 in the AP poll after a 5-0 start) and back (the Badgers gave up 41 second half points in a 51-48 loss at Northwestern Saturday).
And Wisconsin isn’t the only Big Ten team that’s tough to figure. Minnesota raced out to a 4-0 start before being crushed 44-14 by Penn State last week, the type of result that has typically sent Golden Gopher seasons running off the rails. But Minnesota rebounded to claim the Little Brown Jug in Ann Arbor Saturday with a 23-20 win over Michigan, a team that is suddenly everybody’s whipping boy. Everybody, that is, but Michigan State. The Spartans also looked like national title contenders after averaging 45 points in their first three games, but they were unable to beat Michigan at home last weekend.
Where does all this upheaval leave the Big Ten? Most likely on the outside looking in come BCS championship season, which will be a particular indignity for the conference with the title game being played at the Rose Bowl this season. Penn State is the conference’s lone unbeaten team, but a perfect season is far from assured. Several landmines remain on the schedule, starting with a trip to Michigan this week. After the way things have gone in the conference this season, it would shock nobody to see the reeling Wolverines rise up to tarnish Paterno’s revival. But even an 11-0 Penn State might have trouble overcoming its humble preseason position when the BCS standings are calculated, especially with the juggernauts in Austin and Los Angeles planted firmly on the inside track.
But regardless of what happens, the first half of the season has already proven Paterno a sage. After four losing seasons since 2000, many were wishing the 78-year-old legend, now in his 56th year with Penn State, would admit the game had passed him by and retire. But Paterno, defiance growing with each disappointing result, insisted that his Nittany Lions were on the verge of turning things around. His argument was bolstered by the presence of an outstanding recruiting class that brought in such playmaking freshman as receivers Derrick Williams and Deon Butler.
But just as Paterno would surely caution against assuming any more wins for his 6-0 team, we shouldn’t assume that a triumphant season would necessarily lead him off into the sunset on top. He appears to be having too much fun.
Perhaps chucking the staid Penn State offense of old in favor of an attack that gets the ball to his new playmaking stars whenever and wherever possible has rejuvenated Paterno. Then again, the Nittany Lions’ calling card in the Ohio State win was the same as it has been for decades: defense. Paterno’s unit, led by linebacker Paul Posluszny, defensive end Tamba Hali, and cornerback Alan Zemaitis, played as well as the Buckeyes’ more heralded defenders, a welcome site at a school once known as “Linebacker U.”
It is said that coaches are the stars of college football. Five years ago, Paterno was a legend the equal of any man to walk a college sideline, beloved in a town where everything from libraries to ice cream (“Peachy Paterno”) are named in his honor. He was an ageless wonder, always able to relate to the newest crop of wide-eyed 18-year-old recruits. But a 7-16 record over the past two seasons transformed Paterno into the college football equivalent of Willie Mays on the 1973 Mets – a luminary well past his glory.
But Paterno has been around too long to heed his critics in tough times or the back-slappers in good ones. He’s said he continues to coach because he can’t imagine doing anything else, so in troubled times he just goes back to work, back to stalking the sidelines and the living room to tinker with his offense and make champions out of the newest batch of kids.
And so in a year when Florida’s Urban Meyer and Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis have commanded the lion’s share of the coaching headlines, 2005 is shaping up as the year of the old guard, with Paterno and fellow septuagenarian Bobby Bowden of Florida State helming undefeated teams near the top of the polls. Both are legendary figures who’ve endured plenty of calls for their dismissals during recent, disappointing seasons. Neither may win a national or even a conference title this season, but their success should serve as a reminder that sometimes the best coaching move is to ride out the bad with the captain who brought you through the good.
Mr. Levine writes for the statistical Web site FootballOutsiders.com.