"I haven't heard Memorial Stadium this loud except for the Michigan game last year, in 15 years!" pro claimed Sadie from Evanston, a 72-year-old widow who still makes the 155-mile trek southward to see her beloved Illini.

No. 12 Illinois had just upped its newly-earned lead to 27-21 on a 30-yard Peter Christofilakos field goal with 5:47 left and the Champaign party was in full swing.

It lasted about 11 seconds - or about as long as it took Larry Johnson to bounce off two tacklers at his 30 yard line and outsprint the rest of the dazed Illini special team to the end zone and allow Robbie Gould to take on an extra point that would give Penn State a stunning 28-27 lead, sucking the air out of the partisan crowd.

And Lions fans from sea to shining see to allow themselves to envision another great installment in one of college football's great one-season reclamation projects. Their 4,000 or so in Memorial Stadium's southeast corner made sure the place wasn't completely quiet.

It was all up to Penn State's defense, which had played a not-insignificant role in blowing a 21-7 first half lead built before starting quarterback Zack Mills went down with an ankle injury.

"We were focused, we knew exactly what we had to do," said junior defensive end Michael Haynes, who had been flagged controversially for a late third quarter face-mask violation. It kept alive the Illini's touchdown drive that tied the score at 21. "Yeah, we were a little bit tired, but it's one of those things where we felt like we should have been able to stop them," Haynes continued.

"You let adrenaline take over," free safety Shawn Mayer said.

All that remained was for the much-maligned (and written about) atypical Lions defense to come up with one series stop of Illini quarterback Kurt Kittner and his hurry-up offense.

Alas, it couldn't, as has been the case for so much of a season in which Penn State has given up a very un-Lionlike 210 points in eight games.

The size mismatches up front had caught up again.

"It was nothing to with being tired," Haynes insisted. "We just mentally broke down in certain areas...we'll look at films..."

It was a heartening, impassioned defense of his defensive teammates. But in the end, what cost Penn State this game has played a major role in at least four of the Nitts five losses.

One word - muscle.

Haynes, a nice specimen at 6-feet, 3-inches, 263 pounds, was going against a typical Big Ten mass monster in Illini tackle Sean Bubin, a 6-7, 300 handfighter who kept Haynes at arms' length all day. It is typical of line mismatches which have occured all season, enabling Big Ten opponents to go on long, time-consuming drives that kill the Lions.

The league is full of Sean Bubins, the Lions are learning weekly.

Kittner's protection played a key role in his ability to complete nine of his 13 second-half throws for 90 killer yards. He worked behind an offensive line that includes three 300-pounders. He was rarely pressured and sacked only once.

Unquestionably the flashpoint was a third-and-10 defense-friendly play at the Illini 20, where Kittner and the Illini faced down their own skeptics as their season flashed before them.

It was the kind of made-for-Penn State moment Lions fans have savored over the years. The fact that former starter Matt Senneca, a season-long whipping boy, was forced into service and went 6-for-23 passing, victimized by six drops, had a chance to be heaved onto the scrap pile of irrelevancy.

Instead, the Lions' willingness to abandon their hard-charging first-half running game for double reverse flea-flicker gadgetry and inability to press ure Kittner jumped back and became a classic metaphor for this frustrating season.

With all due apologies to Mr. Haynes, it was the the classic "mental breakdown" symptomatic of a worn down defense.

Facing very late pressure from Haynes and blitzing linebacker Ron Graham, Kittner planted and fired a perfect cross-body strike to Brandon Lloyd at the 50, a 30-yarder that linch-pinned the Illini's game-winning nine-play, 80-yard march.

Six plays later, tailback Rocky Harvey was dragging Palatine (Ill.) High School grad Yaacov Yisrael into the end zone to complete a 13-yard bolt that won it for the Illini, who sensed that pounding the ball between the tackles would be very productive.

"Were we tired? Probably," coach Joe Paterno conceded.

"We lost the football game a thousand ways," Paterno added with typical class, mirroring a team and staff-wide unwillingness to point fingers. "I'm not disappointed in anybody. I'm disappointed we lost the football game - period."

It is a quote that no doubt made it into every newspaper that staffs Penn State football.

Matt Senneca, class act that he always is, took heat for missing open receivers - "It's on me," he patiently told reporter after reporter. "I missed 'em, they were open, there were plays to be made and I didn't make 'em."

But as ugly as Senneca's numbers were, and as understandable as it might be to lay the burden on a stalled second-half offense, the real reason the Lions lost this one took place on the other side of the ball, where Illinois ground out 141 second half rushing yards and 19:19-10:41 possession advantage.

It is the place Paterno and his staff will have to look hardest in the off-season to find guys who will push back against the huge offensive lines of the Big Ten.