October 20, 2001. Penn State 38, Northwestern 35.

Yeah, sure, you'll say, you've got eight million stories in the naked city college football has become and you pick THAT?

You betcha.

It didn't take a select blue-ribbon panel wearing Nittany Lion blue sunglasses, either.

But when a team had been so thoroughly tromped into the various sods and turfs of the Big Ten...

And when its glittering reputation splattered and splotched with four straight losses that had created the loudest murmurs in central Pennsylvania since the Rebels raided Gettysburg, then turned around and became a bowl prospect, it got leaguewide, if not national attention.

Never mind the pursuit of Bear Bryant's all-time coaching record, can Team Paterno win a game? The 38-35 upset over double-digit favorite Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., on Oct. 20 answered that. Few outside the spacious Lions locker room realized it represented a Penn State football renaissance.

So Penn State's 42-37 win in Spartan Stadium last Saturday thus became a classic punctuation mark for this season.

But when asked, redshirt freshman quarterback Zack Mills will point directly at the practices after the 20-0 face-rubbing administered by Michigan in a grouchy Beaver Stadium Oct. 6.

He remembered the earthy, Brooklyn-bred prose of his father confessor/coach, Joe Paterno, the off-the-wall throwbacks to 1970, and an era where John Hufnagel's wounded ducks somehow found their way into Lions receivers hands for key first downs.

And the introduction of guys named Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell into Penn State's offense, a rite that turned an ugly 2-3 duckling into a 7-3 swan that barely missed a post-season bowl bid. It was 13 days of resuscitative therapy Mills remembers well.

From that latter-day Rockne psych job came this:

"We began to believe in ourselves in practice," Mills said. "We kept telling ourselves it was two seasons, that this was a whole new season and to shoot for 7-0. We lost the tough one (33-28 at Illinois on a late Rocky Harvey 13-yard touchdown run), so we can't go undefeated.

"But we're still trying for 6-1."

OK, the outsider muses, well let's see, there's Florida's bounceback from the stunning loss at Auburn to be within two wins of a national championship date at Pasadena, most likely vs. B.C.S. No. 1 seed Miami.

There's Illinois, climbing to No. 9 and clear-cut Big Ten champion and first-time B.C.S. participant.

There's the sudden collapse of both Nebraska AND Oklahoma on the SAME WEEKEND.

And yet...

"Penn State has become a compelling story," Illini coach Ron Turner had said during the week. "Joe has really got those guys off the canvas and back into the fight."

And one win at Virginia, Saturday, away from a possible Alamo Bowl bid. After the Lions (5-5) had rallied behind Mills to turn a 24-7 deficit against the Spartans into a 42-31 lead, then held on, one brazen beat guy asked Paterno the inevitable.

"Anything to the reports you've talked with Alamo Bowl officials?" he queried.

"The only talks I have," Joe Pa countered, "are with the Good Lord, praying! We enjoyed San Antonio (where Penn State defeated Texas A & M 24-0 Dec. 28, 1999). But we've got to win to get there."

Possible translation: Yeah, sure I talked with 'em. I was wondering how their families were doing, whether they were planning to do any upgrading of the Alamo Dome. Oh yeah, and by the way, we play Michigan State Saturday and if we beat 'em, we're 5-5 (and 4-4 in the Big Ten after an 0-3 start) and would appreciate...

Or not. But right then, as the late-afternoon gales howled all around the M.S.U. campus, Paterno was only too happy to contemplate the flight back to State College and the trip to Charlottesville, Va. ahead.

"We've got a chance to be a pretty good football team," he said, defusing the ever-present starting quarterback issue of inconsistent junior Matt Senneca vs. Mills with a shrug, smile and a little political correctness.

"(Mills) is a competitor, real smart. I don't think it makes a difference to him whether he starts."

Fast forward 20 minutes to when Mills held court in the same spot and rolled his eyes, told of Paterno's description of the suburban Washington native's role.

Mills had been magical, completing 13 of 24 passes for 240 yards and one touchdown in the total adversity of a 17-7 second-quarter deficit and horrendous crosswinds swirling through Spartan Stadium.

"I don't know," he said. "I kinda like coming in (as backup to starter Matt Senneca). It kind of takes the pressure off."

Mills the iconoclast spit into the wind. He was cathartic, guiding the Lions to five consecutive touchdown drives beginning from two capping Eric McCoo 2-yard TD runs to three straight TD marches in the third to put Penn State up 42-31.

Mills smiled at Paterno's description of his role.

"Hmmmm..." he said, knowing his coach's persona by heart now. "I figured now we can control our own destiny, which we can. There's a little bit of everything there. So much of this game is mental. It all goes back to believing in ourselves."

The belief was never more evident than during the first T.D. drive of the second half, which began with the Lions down 31-21 and stayed there after the Spartans had driven 53 yards to the Penn State 17, only to have Dave Raymer slice a 35-yard field-goal attempt wide right.

With the 17th straight Spartan Stadium sellout of 72,658 in full howl, the Lions faced the wind and a third-and-five at their 36-yard line that, in fact, flashed their season in front of them.

"I just told Zack (during the series) I was going to get open," backup tight end R.J. Luke said.

Open might be an understatement. He ran a crossing pattern that turned the talented Spartans’ secondary into a rush-hour panic. "He was sooooo open," Mills said. "He just took off to the left. R.J.'s like that. Gimme the ball and it'll be six."

So Mills, who had replaced an ineffective Senneca with 14:48 left in the second quarter, already had the Spartans' aggressive defense backpedaling. But this play spun the game -and the season into Penn State's control.

The result, after Luke outraced free safety Thomas Wright to complete a 64-yard T.D. that brought the Lions ultimately within 31-28, put a charge in Penn State's defense.

But we digress. Luke, the first significant Illinois recruit Paterno landed, used a little modern technology to make sure Wright didn't catch up.

"When I came back to the ball, I got up my speed, then I got fast," Luke said. "I'd rolled my ankle (against Ohio State) and was taking Ibuprofen, but I just got rolling and looked up at the replay board and saw where (Wright) was. When he dove (near the goal line,) I dove."

The burst of speed startled Michigan State's sideline and super-charged the Lions defense, which held the Spartans to only one 44-yard touchdown drive in the second half, capped by Manheim, Pa. native Jeff Smoker's 2-yard T.D. pass to Chris Baker.

The defense also forced a Baker turnover at the M.S.U. 21 right shortly after McCoo had capped a 68-yard march with his third 2-yard T.D. bolt to give Penn State the lead for good. Mills' rollout left the Lions with just enough working margin.

Again. In the 38-35 win at Northwestern, in the 29-27 shocker over Ohio State, and in shutting down Indiana's awesome Antwaan Randle El led offense, the at times defensively-challenged Lions had defied the laws of football nature.

The uphill climb had been precipitous. But suddenly Joe Paterno is a YOUNG 74. Suddenly those Coke-bottle glasses make him look positively professorial and he possesses the acumen of a nuclear scientist. Yep, Penn State insiders he had shed all inhibitions.

"I didn't ever think we were that bad of a team," Paterno assesed. "Miami jumped all over us (33-7). I thought we could do some things against them, we made a mistake and bang -we were down 10-0.

"There were two big plays against Michigan that killed us. Iowa was a very winnable game, but we didn't play well against Wisconsin at all. The time off (after Michigan), I just wanted to reassert some things."

Call it reassertiveness training. And Penn State has proven to be at least an A- student. It also, as the Great Statistician will affirm, may be one of the first teams to rebound from an 0-4 record to make it to a bowl game, even if that doesn't carry the significance of 30 years ago.

Even outside Happy Valley, few cynics are snickering at that accomplishment now.