With each Nittany Lions defeat come new questions from new sources. For Joseph Vincent Paterno, the post game trudge from sidelines to locker room weighs heavier by the game.

On the opposite sideline, Jim Tressel, the fourth-year Ohio State coach, had dealt with a different volatility.

So when Penn State and Ohio State hooked up Saturday in Columbus, a game that even five years ago meant ratings points, marquee matchups and national T.V. attention, some veteran observers had to fight off urges to build "Dead Men Walking" imageries.

Indeed, after the Nitts (2-6 overall, 0-5 in Big Ten play), fell yet again, 21-10, to the struggling Buckeyes, the crowd of 104,947 applauded politely and gave the suddenly-embattled Tressel at least a week's stay of execution.

Optimism was as rare as Kerry sympathy at a 700 Club convention.

Even though the Bucks' record, 5-3/2-3, is a tad shinier, the two teams had a lot in common.

At Ohio State, the issue is the slow-to-react style of sophomore quarterback Justin Zwick vs. the feisty freshman athleticism of Troy Smith, who had made it plain he was wasting away on the Bucks' bench.

After a sluggish 0-3 league start, which culminated with an ugly 33-7 bottom-out at Iowa, Tressel, ever the conservative, finally gave in...

In the Bucks' 30-7 pounding of Indiana Oct. 23, Smith had shown enough spunk to merit a game-long look against Penn State's powerhouse defense.

Ooops...Clunk. Penn State, which has put up its most impressive defensive numbers since 1978, the year it challenged Paul "Bear" Bryant's last Alabama team for the national title, shut down Smith and the Bucks, limiting Ohio State to 202 yards total offense.

"I don't make out the gameplan," Smith told Jon Spencer of the Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal. "I don't decide what we're going to do. I do what I'm asked and try to execute to the best of my ability. We were trying to score points, I know that."

The 21 came in the oddest of ways: Ted Ginn Jr.'s 67-yard punt return, just the latest in the former Cleveland Glenville High School All-American's growing list of spectacular journeys...Tyler Everett's 24-yard interception return of a wayward of a telegraphed Michael Robinson pass down the left sideline and Branden Joe's four-yard second-quarter bolt that countered Tony Hunt's drive-capping 3-yard run for a 21-7 halftime lead.

"What more can go wrong for us?" Robinson complained to The Associated Press's Rusty Miller. "We just get tired of losing. Nobody came here to lose."

Penn State's defense, in fact, yielded no points. Ginn's and Joe's touchdowns were direct results of special teams breakdowns, Joe's set up by a 62-yard kickoff return by Maurice Hall after Hunt had scored.

"We work like dogs on the kicking game all week because we're scared of it," Paterno told Philadelphia Inquirer Lions beat guy Ray Parrillo. "We make it a priority and then we get beaten badly in the kicking game."

Which of course brings up the questions about somehow getting hands on the speedier athletes who populate the Michigans, Ohio States, Iowas and Wisconsins of the Big Ten.

But that would be mid-week material.

Meanwhile, those time-worn expressions on Tressel's face didn't magnify an image of a winning coach.

The Buckeyes, meanwhile, will visit a highly piffed off Michigan State team that blew a glorious upset opportunty at both teams' most despised rival, Michigan, yielding a 27-10 mid-fourth quarter lead and losing 45-37 in overtime.

Then an equally unhappy Purdue team before facing their Ann Arbor amigos to close out the regular season.

Happy November, Jim.

But don't look for a Justin Zwick resurrection just yet. "Troy has reinforced in my mind that he's a competitor," Tressel told Spencer. "And I think the more he's in there seeing it for himself, the more he understands what people try to do to stop us and what we need to attack people."

They need more than a three-yards/cloud-of-dust running game that produced just 143 yards in 44 attempts. Tressel's reins on Smith were tight-tighter-tightest. In true old-fashioned Woody Hayes tradition, Smith, who was Ginn's Glenville teammate, threw only eight passes, completing six for 59 yards.

"It's no secret that he's had a passion to be the Ohio State quarterback," Tressel said. "That's what he wants to be and I'm proud of how he's going about it."

The early-season dissent has become a latter-season cornerstone of stability. Partly because of a participant in a very different type of combat. "We had a guy over in the (Iraqi) war come back and tell us if he gave 99.9 percent, he might be dead," Smith said somberly. "So giving 100 percent is the key."

For Troy Smith and the ever-hopeful Buckeyes, the spirit is willing. The next three weeks will determine with crystal clarity if the flesh is strong enough.

Defensive muscle is not a Penn State problem, as visiting Northwestern will no doubt find out this coming Saturday. The Lions' no-name defenders have put up the kind of numbers that bring smiles to their proud ancestors, people like Mike Reid, Jack Ham, Chet Parlavecchio, Matt Millen, Shane Conlan and a dizzying cast of dozens.

A defense so good that defensive tackle blocked a fourth-quarter field goal attempt by Mike Nugent, quite possibly the nation's best field kicker.

This all-points search comes on offense. The Inquirer's astute observer, Parrillo, noted ABC had estimated Paterno had logged five and a half miles pacing the sidelines. Probably about five of those were offense-related.

Robinson was again called on to replace senior Zack Mills, who suffered a concussion against Iowa last week in a 6-4 defeat where usually reliable Rob Gould's game-winning three-run "homer" sailed wide, robbing the Nitts of a major upset and morale boost.

"I did feel a little rusty," Robinson said. "The wind was kind of tough out there in the direction we were going in the first quarter, but that's no excuse. Those are throws I've got to make."

Everett's killer interception was a perfect metaphor for Penn State's season. But you might say Paterno's decision to go for a field goal with 9:31 left in the fourth quarter, down 14, plays in as well.

After Robinson had hit Hunt on a 12-yard dart that gave the Nitts a first down at the O.S.U. 6, the offense imploded, nothing new there, setting up a fourth-and-3 at the Buckeyes' three.

"I'd probably second-guess myself on that," Paterno said candidly. "I thought we were playing really good defense. There was nine and a half minutes to go. It's one of those things (where) you're never sure if you're right, but I'd probably do it over again."

So would Tressel, most likely. Not that there's that much to tell these teams apart. Last year at Beaver Stadium, O.S.U. won 21-20 on a Craig Krenzel-to-Michael Jenkins pass in the last 90 seconds. Two years ago at the Big Horseshoe, Ohio State needed a major dosage of extreme athleticism from Chris Gamble to squeeze by 13-7.

But the telltale stat is Ohio State goes 3-0 in that stretch. Which is one-part luck, one-part skill, a dash of winning know-how and another of better talent.

How far off the pace is Penn State, which will be home for the holidays for the fourth time in five years? How do they find people like Ginn, Jr., whose hip-jiggling, swing-and-sway moves helped him elude three Lions defenders and produce a play that gave the Buckeyes a lead they'd never surrender?

"We're so close, so close and we're finding every way to lose," Paxson told The (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News' Bob Flounders. "I just look around and we're not a 2-6 football team."

Maybe. Maybe not. But if Penn State is going to regain its uphill footing in one of the nation's most unforgiving conferences, it had better beef up its offensive line, find ways to keep bluechip tailback Austin Scott and plowhorse Rodney Kinlaw healthy.

The Bucks, meanwhile, seem to miss the big pass rushes of Will Smith and the blitzes of linebacker Matt Wilhelm more than a little.

And this Saturday, likely, a dinged-up Drew Stanton, who has lifted Michigan State (4-4, 3-2) back to respectability, presents Iowa-like offensive problems.

If the Bucks are to take the last three games of this frustrating season and turn them into a major maturing process, a win in East Lansing is essential.

Notable -- For the first time, Penn State offensive coordinator Galen Hall, a sideline fixture, operated from the visiting coaches' booth...ONE SIGN OF LION LIFE?: Penn State rushed for 177 yards, 85 by Hunt...Hunt's T.D. was the Lions' first since the first quarter of the Purdue game Oct. 9...O.S.U. cornerback Justin Fox on Paterno's fourth-quarter field goal decision: "I don't know what Joe was thinking there," he told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer's Bruce Hooley...Telling stat: O.S.U., up 14-0 with 3:41 in the first quarter had run three plays for five yards' total and 1 minute, 1 second of possession. "That's huge to get up on them like that early, the way they've struggled," said Bucks linebacker A.J. Hawk.