“It was a team effort,” Bill O’Brien said to his group of assembled players on Saturday night after losing 35-23 to Ohio State.
“We win as a team and we lose as a team.”
And with that, he turned over the blue-and-white carpeted floor in the center of the Penn State locker room to Matt McGloin. It was the senior quarterback’s job to “break it down” – to provide final inspiration.
“Let’s go out there and compete,” said McGloin, as related by a pair of teammates. “Let’s beat Purdue next week. Let’s rebound from this and keep winning.
“9 and 3. That’s our goal. 9 and 3 on three.”
With that, the Nittany Lions raised their hands to the middle, counted to three and barked in cadence, “9 and 3.”
Penn State’s 2012 season, the career of McGloin and 23 other seniors, and O’Brien’s first on-the-field campaign as head coach all end in 27 days. Once the Nittany Lions hit the prescription athletic turf of Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Ind., the season then moves into warp speed. Four games in 22 days.
After that: No bowl game, no additional 15 practices, no more McGloin or Mauti or Hill or Stankiewitch.
Matt Stankiewitch, Penn State’s thinking man of a center, doesn’t want to hear about it. When I reminded him after Penn State’s win over Northwestern that the 2012 campaign – his season at PSU – was half over, he shook his head.
“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know,” he said. “It’s going too fast.”
Now, Stankiewitch and many of his teammates are in the homestretch of their final college season. Hill should leave Penn State with 29 starts, Stankiewitch 27, making them 1-2 among the seniors. The games will continue to come fast and furious. And so will the anniversaries, so very often a feel-good noun but often now on campus a misnomer of the saddest degree.
Today is the one-year anniversary of Joe Paterno’s last game, his (since revoked) record 409th victory, a 10-7 snoozer facilitated by Illinois’ failed field goal attempt that clanged off the right upright but won by a drive featuring the best of McGloin and Silas Redd in the final 3:05.
The Sandusky presentment was made public on Nov. 5, 2011, which is a year ago next Monday. On Nov. 9 last year, Paterno announced his retirement, only to be fired later that night. Then there are the legal travails of McQueary, Schultz and Curley. And the negotiations with the victims. And, and, and.
And at least for a day on Saturday, 107,818 Whited Out the never-ending drama.
And O’Brien continues to coach and the Penn State players continue to play – with a resiliency and resolve that no one had a right to expect.
This team’s character has already and forever been defined, in such a positive way that no one can dispute. And O’Brien’s firm countenance, steady direction and unwavering devotion to his players and Penn State has been nay remarkable. What remains now, though, are four games — on the field.
The results won’t define the 2012 version of the Nittany Lions, but McGloin’s desirous 9-3 or a potential 8-4 would make for a more triumphant story arc in an upcoming documentary or a strong punctuation mark in a current player’s potential book.
A 2-2 finish is conceivable, a 3-1 possible. The final four, as a group, are not overwhelmingly daunting for a Penn State team that is just one game removed from a five-game winning streak and four games removed from the end of 16 or 17 players’ careers.
Still, each could either way. Like college students plowing through finals raw on caffeine and little sleep, Penn State’s players – they are college students, after all – have been riding this gritty, determined, emotion-charged high for a very long time. They may not want to or plan to, but a crash is possible. They have been riding a frenetic wave for months.
Here’s what they face in the month ahead:
Saturday’s opponent, Purdue, is 3-5, with four consecutive losses by a combined margin of 155-77. But, as O’Brien is sure to point out, the Boilermakers took The Ohio State University into overtime before losing, 29-22, at The Horseshoe.
Three weeks from now, Indiana (also 3-5) would seem to be an easy mark. Before beating everyone’s punching bag, Illinois, 31-17 on Saturday, they lost five straight. But on closer examination, their conference losses were by 1, 3, 4 and 15 points.
That leaves Nebraska (Nov. 10 on the road) and Wisconsin (Nov. 24 in the season-ender, in Beaver Stadium). At 6-2, Nebraska is the tougher of the two. They’ve won five of their last six, including a 23-9 win over No. 20 Michigan on Saturday as well as victories over Wisconsin and Northwestern. Their biggest loss? Against Ohio State, 63-38.
Wisconsin (6-3) is off this Saturday before facing Indiana and Ohio State in advance of its trip to Beaver Stadium. In the conference, the Badgers have beaten Illinois, Purdue and Minnesota – hardly Murderers’ Row – and have lost to Michigan State and Nebraska.
Penn State is 5-3. Where it ends up is truly anyone’s guess. Surely, even O’Brien would admit that.
(Although McGloin is, no doubt, characteristically confident about the 9-3. This is the same guy who, when I told him just days before the season-opener that his team could go 5-1 to start, he just turned and walked away, but not before saying, ‘We’re going to win all six.’)
That we are trying to count possible stretch-run victories is certainly a victory of sorts. That means many eyes are back on the field, where the Penn State players’ hearts have never left.
