Penn State Loses Way at Notre Dame

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By Michael B. Sisak 3d
sisak@collegeblitz.com

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The first sign of a troublesome day for Penn Staters traveling last Saturday from Chicago came on Interstate 90/94 at the Indiana-Illinois border when the lettuce tractor-trailer caught fire. That delayed travelers who left at 6 A.M. Central for two hours in a dusty two-lane construction zone where workers efficiently poured concrete for a new lane.

For Nittany Nation that was the only precise teamwork seen on its side of the scrimmage line, which in this corridor was the Jersey Barrier.

The next bad omen came in Michigan City, Ind., at the Penn State team’s dated overnight hotel, the Holiday Inn, which might have gotten its last coat of fresh paint in 1992, the last time Penn State played, and lost, at Notre Dame. The lobby was dark and dreary and depressing -- a demoralizing difference from the plush Orange Bowl hotel on Miami Beach. The nearest Styrofoam of coffee was at Denny’s next door. The South Bend Tribune was a freebie at the registration desk, but the hometown Michigan City paper was absent. A large window along a corridor had not seen Windex since Gerry Faust routed Penn State, 44-7, in 1984.

The view did not get much better 40 miles east in South Bend. The general parking for a football game was in a different Zip Code from Notre Dame Stadium. The walk was long and heavy for the collegeBLITZ.com photographer with a 50-pound backpack of equipment through high grass and a makeshift road to, Eureka, pavement. Meeting a student at The Jack meant looking for an hour somewhere in front of the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce Center, where the basketball and hockey teams play, and nearly every fan uses the rest rooms.

The stadium did not open its gates until an hour before the 2:30 P.M. Eastern kickoff. That was too little time to share the Fighting Irish atmosphere. The roads to the stadium prevented visits to downtown South Bend. The College Football Hall of Fame cannot be seen from behind a steering wheel.

Then came the signs of trouble on the field.

Penn State won the toss and deferred. Why? To showcase a defense that spent more time on the worn field than fertilizer -- 19 minutes in the first half, allowing 40 plays on the first four series. The defense played soft with no pass rush on senior quarterback Brady Quinn, who played pitch and catch and completed 25 of 36 passes for 287 yards. The Penn State secondary, greener than the field grass and no taller than 6 feet, was outsized by 6-foot-5 senior wide receiver Jeff Samardzija (6 receptions for 56 yards), 6-6 senior tight end John Carlson (6-98), 6-2 senior X receiver Rhema McKnight (5-59) and 5-10 senior running back Darius Walker (7-72), who all totaled 24 catches for 285 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Penn State had no pass rush because its best pass rusher from last season, Tamba Hali, had graduated to the Kansas City Chiefs. Paul Posluszny, the senior all-America middle linebacker whose knee was torn in the Orange Bowl, seemed a step slower chasing receivers and going sideline to sideline. But that could have been because of the humidity or the fatigue. Or the lack of spring and preseason practice time. Or the 25 pounds of muscle he added in the off-season. Or the brace he wore.

D for defense was the grade given by Neil Rudel, a Penn State alum who is the managing editor of The Altoona Mirror. And D was his grade for the Penn State coaching staff. “Penn State was outprepared,” Rudel wrote.“If you read between the lines of JoePa’s postgame remarks, he pretty much admitted it.”

Joe Paterno, who later in the week appeared on Katie Couric’s new news magazine on CBS, lives by the mantra of wanting to make an impact. On this day he did not make an impact.

“Notre Dame played very well,” Paterno said in his postgame remarks.“I thought that they did a great job coaching. I think they outplayed us, we made too many mistakes, we were sloppy. I think also you have to give the Notre Dame kids credit for how alert they were and you have to give the coaching staff credit for how many good things they did. They kept us out of balance most of the game.”

Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis conducted a coaching clinic. He said he had watched all 11 Penn State tapes from last season (did he forget Game 12 against Florida State?) and decided to keep the defense on the field long, force turnovers and pick on the secondary, as Faust, who sat in the press box, had done in 1984. Weis was aided by three Penn State turnovers that led to 17 Notre Dame points. And two of those turnovers killed early opportunities that would have made the game at least competitive. The third one was the knockout punch.

An affable Weis went over his game plan in his postgame conference with the news media. Standing at the podium, he said:“Remember now, you're playing against a team with one experienced offensive lineman, four relatively new guys. You're playing with a quarterback that's relatively new. What you have to do is you have to get some heat on them. Each week it's something different. I think this was a game we had to try to get some heat on them. Even if you give up a couple of plays, it wasn't because you weren't getting some heat on them. They did a pretty good job of getting some pressure on him.”

About his offense, Weis said:“What I really liked is the first half was meticulous. We had it about 19 minutes out of the 30 minutes. Now, that isn't just offense, that's offense and defense playing well.”

Earlier he had said,“I’m a big situational coach.” Size mattered.

With the score 20-0 at the start of the third quarter, when Penn State used its deferment and began a drive, quarterback Anthony Morelli, in only his second career start, had the ball stripped from him on an option that was returned for a touchdown by senior safety Tom Zbikowski, a professional boxer who won a fight this summer at Madison Square Garden. That was the knockout punch.

Then came the dagger, the fake punt. Will linebacker (That’s not a question; it’s what Notre Dame calls the position.) Travis Thomas, a Pennsylvanian who took the game as a personal grudge match, ran 45 yards to set up his 1-yard run for a touchdown that opened a 34-3 lead.

Back up the three buses for the ride to the charter flight, and pack the moving van for the trip along I-80 to State College. Maybe the trip home would be easier.