And it was to be a happy 15-year reunion for Joe Paterno.

"Is it 15 years since we have been up there?" he wondered before the game. "I have always liked Boston. When I was a kid at Brown University, I spent many a time chasing the girls up there in Boston and didn’t have much luck, obviously. I can remember going up to Fenway Park and going right by Mayor Curley’s house where they had the shamrocks on the shutters and waiting until Ted Williams had his last swing. When Ted Williams had his last swing, we came home.

"It will be good to go back. I haven’t been to Chestnut Hill for a long time. I almost went to Boston College. I went to a Jesuit high school (Brooklyn Prep). My dad wanted me to go to a Catholic college and the Jesuits all wanted me to go to Boston College, Fordham or maybe Georgetown. I decided that I just didn’t want to go up there.

"A lot of friends of mine went up there. Artie Donovan and Ernie Stautner and all of those guys. Jack Diminick who is the high school coach of Mount Carmel (Pa.). All of those guys were at Boston College when I was at Brown, and we used to spend a lot of time together. It is fun. A couple of my old teammates have hit me up for tickets already. That is the nice thing about old teammates: they think you have hundreds of free tickets. It will be nice to go back. I just hope we play well."

At the end of the what became an unpleasant reunion Saturday night in which his team did not play or party well, Paterno sat stone-faced and slouched in the first seat on the first of three Peter Pan shamrock-green buses that the state police escorted to Logan International Airport in Boston.

Earlier Paterno had held his tired face up with his right hand as he answered reporters' questions. A columnist for The Boston Herald wrote Sunday that Paterno looked like Muhammad Ali after his last fight. Clearly, Paterno showed that he did not expect to lose to Boston College, especially by a 21-7 licking by what now is the best college football team in the Northeast.

	Even the Nittany Lion was stunned by the power of Boston College and the inept play of Penn State, here as Eagles’ senior tight end David Kashetta snatches a jump ball for a touchdown.

Clearly, he showed that the game that he and his players pointed to as the turnaround from the doom and gloom of the past three seasons was another nightmare — a giant step back, instead of being back. He looked like he had not slept the entire weekend, and his team played like it was tired and a step short of a current powerhouse that it used to beat regularly except for the last three times. Penn State leads the series, 19-4.

The loss was reminiscent of past early-season losses: In Game 2 of 1987, No. 11 Penn State lost to No. 19 Alabama, 23-24, in a Saturday night game at Beaver Stadium; in Game 1 of 1989 No. 12 Penn State lost at Virginia, 14-6, in a Saturday night game; in Game 2 of 1990, Penn State lost at No. 6 Southern California, 19-14; in Game 3 of 1991, No. 5 Penn State lost at Southern California, 21-10. Three of those four losses were on the road.

The 1987 team finished 8-4; 1989, 8-3-1; 1990, 9-3, and 1991, 11-2.

Maybe it is good for Penn State to lose early. In Game 5 of 1982 No. 3 Penn State lost at No. 4 Alabama, 42-21, in now-condemned Legion Field in Birmingham for Bear Bryant's last victory over Penn State that made him 4-0 against Joe Paterno. That 1982 team finished 11-1 and won the first national championship for Penn State.

The big concern is how this Penn State team will deal with adversity, in which it has majored for the last three seasons and has not had passing grades. Again it showed it could not deal with adversity on Boston College's first drive. After forcing a punt on the first series, Penn State was penalized for roughing the kicker. After forcing a punt on the second series, Penn State was again penalized for roughing the kicker. The defense that had stopped Boston College was forced to remain on the field for 18 plays of the drive that gave Boston College a 7-0 lead.

Both penalties on the punt blocks looked marginal in slow-MO. The first punt blocker, Darien Hardy, ran joyously to the sideline and then solemnly looked to the heavens to acknowledge his young father, Daryl, a victim of kidney cancer, whom he had just buried in Philadelphia earlier Saturday. How much more sincerity does a Big Ten officiating crew need? When a defender and blocker converge in front of the kicker, there should be no penalty on the defender if the contact is continuous or accidental or created by the offensive bump. Clearly on the second penalty the punter kicked the defender and initiated the contact. The Harrisburg Patriot-News web site carried Joe Hermitt's excellent photo of the punter planting his foot on the one of No. 31, linebacker Paul Posluszny.

Ironically, Boston College was the only nonconference opponent of Penn State's to decline the use of the Big Ten's instant replay.

"Let's not get into that," Paterno said Tuesday.

But the issues for Penn State go beyond penalties on blocked punts and the inability to cope with those setbacks. Five turnovers, including four interceptions thrown by Mills, are Temple statistics. Better backfield blocking could have sprung some option plays and develop the running game so Mills could have had time for a passing game. The running game produced 73 net yards. Not even 6-foot-2, 225-pound all-purpose runner Michael Robinson could penetrate through two defenders who were waved at by potential blockers.

Mills was hurried into passing, and when he had a man open he sometimes lacked zip on the ball, allowing flutter passes to be picked off.

On defense, arm-tackling did not work against the tough Boston College offense. The nastiness that New Yorkers see in pedestrian traffic and road rage seems to be missing among the Nittany Lions' blockers and tacklers.

"They just played better than we did," Paterno said afterward. "They didn't do anything fancy. They just beat us."

Boston College is one of the unknowns of college football. That it opened the season on a Thursday night at Ball State and barely won by 19-11 was an advantage. It happened in virtual secrecy. There was no live telecast of that game and no live radio broadcast in Boston, because of commitments to the Red Sox broadcast and to the President George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

In that game, Boston College lost its best taillback -- L.V. Whitworth who had run for 116 yards at Ball State -- and offensive tackle Jeremy Trueblood. The betting line opened with Boston College favored by 2 points. By midweek Penn State was favored by 3 points, based on the unknown about whether Coach Tom O'Brien could find a replacement tailback and a replacement tackle. Andre Callender, a red-shirt freshman, rushed behind a manhandling offensive line for 114 yards on 27 carries in his first start and Trueblood was back at tackle.

"We didn't play smart," Paterno lamented after the game. "It's as simple as that."

Tuesday, at his weekly press conference, Paterno was upbeat. "We played hard," he said. "I don't think I need to panic. I'm disappointed but I'm not discouraged. We played hard, but we didn't play well. They (B.C.) played hard and they played well. I feel good about this football team. I want to encourage them because they have worked hard."

On the road, Penn State is now 1-9 since winning at Wisconsin in 2002. In those 10 games, Penn State has scored 109 points. The last seven road games have been losses and only 71 points were scored.

Mills, a senior, is now barely .500 as a starting quarterback. Penn State is now 23-27 since the devastating loss to Minnesota in 1999 that ended a 9-0 start and began the long slide.

Is this the beginning of four more years of mediocrity?

The door to Paterno's bus wore a bumper sticker that read: "TEAMSTERS FOR KERRY." John Kerry is a Boston College law school alumnus.

Someone mentioned to the bus driver that Paterno is a Republican who nominated the past President George H.W. Bush in Houston in 1992 and who introduced the present President Bush at a York, Pa., rally in July, and whose son, Scott, is running for Congress in Pennsylvania's 17th District.

Humorously, the driver pretended to cover up the sticker.

Paterno never saw the bumper sticker. He was focused on Boston College. Now he is refocusing on making his team respond immediately as the 1982, 1987, 1989, 1990 and 1991 teams did. Immediately, because two of the next three games are on the road again.