Lions know they can't take Michigan lightly
Print
Share
Email to a friend
Add This
Feeds
Local Sports
Article RatingImages
Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno makes his way to his seat before his weekly news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008 in State College, Pa. Penn State plays Michigan, at home, on Saturday. (AP Photo/Pat Little)
There’s always that fear in the back of Joe Paterno’s mind.
The one that a struggling Michigan team (2-4, 1-1), fresh off an embarrassing home loss to MAC representative Toledo, could piece together the one performance they need to save its season at the expense of Paterno’s No. 3 Nittany Lions (7-0, 3-0).
Could it happen? Sure, anything can in college football.
But the Wolverines aren’t your father’s Michigan team, or even Lloyd Carr’s Michigan team.
They are struggling in every sense of the word.
Under first year head coach Rich Rodriguez, the Wolverines are dead last in scoring offense (18.8 ppg) in the Big Ten, ninth in scoring defense (yielding 24.8 ppg), 10th in passing offense and passing defense, ninth in rushing offense and dead last in total offense.
Not exactly the start Wolverines fans had in mind when Rodriguez left West Virginia in a high profile coaching change over the winter.
Still, after a 48-7 whipping of Wisconsin last weekend, Paterno stood in the visitors locker room at Camp Randall Stadium and reminded his team about the streak the Wolverines have had over his team in the last nine meetings.
“It was after the game and I just wanted to get things in focus,” Paterno said. “Try to make sure we didn’t walk out of there with our heads in the clouds and just said ‘hey ...’ I forget exactly how I did it.
“We haven’t beaten them in nine years or something like that.”
The last time a Penn State team defeated Michigan was all the way back in 1996. Since then it’s been a series dominated by the Wolverines with close calls in the majority of the contests.
The last four meetings have been decided by a combined 17 points, all by seven or less.
That doesn’t mean Michigan won’t bring it’s best to Beaver Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
“You have to be careful when you look at the Toledo tape,” Paterno said. “Then you have to go back and look at their Notre Dame game, their Illinois game, some things like that where they’re almost like a different football team,” Paterno said.
“Obviously they’re struggling a little bit in certain key positions, but there’s talent all over the place. They’ve got a lot of good kids that are going to be really good and I just hope they are a week away.
“No, no, no, no, it’s not a mental thing. We had a couple of tough ball games where it could go either way and a lot of it was not due to the people playing the game. There were some outside people who blew a couple of things and made it a little tougher to win. But, no, I don’t think it’s a psychological thing at all. Even if (former Michigan coach) Lloyd (Carr) were there, that’s not the problem. The point I wanted to make was, ‘Hey, you’re not going to have a bunch of guys coming into State College and they’re going to be in awe of us or anything like that,’” Paterno said.
“We’ve got to go out and play and we gotta be ready to play a good, tough football game.”
Penn State is just 1-5 against Michigan at Beaver Stadium since 1993, and has been out-scored in those contests 140-85.
Granted this Penn State offense is much more dynamic than anyone that’s hosted Michigan, averaging nearly 500 yards per game and 45.3 points per outing.
Then you add in the crop of seniors like Deon Butler, Jordan Norwood, Derrick Williams, Mark Rubin, and A.Q. Shipley that have had no success against the Wolverines and are out to finally dispatch of the hex Michigan has held over Penn State during the last decade.
Paterno doesn’t see his team in need of any vindication.
“You guys have gotta write columns and you gotta figure out something to write. We’ve probably won more games in the last three and a half years than any team in the country. We won 11, and nine and nine and we got. I don’t know whether that’s the best or what. I’ve never felt I had to vindicate myself in any way,” Paterno said.
“My only job is to make sure we do the best job we can for the kids out there busting their butt and try to win as many games as we can and play as well as we can and do it with a little class. I think our fans feel good about the team and the university. But, as far as vindicating myself, nah, that’s up to you guys.”
“I think Michigan is a good football team. And they can go out there and beat anybody. They can get a couple of kids that start to feel good about themselves, make a couple of plays, get a little momentum. You gotta look at a couple other games. Forget the Toledo game. You literally got to wipe that thing out. They didn’t play very well at all,” Paterno added.
“I don’t know whether they went into the game with the right ... without looking back at a couple of things. But, then you look at a couple other games they’ve played. They’ve played really well. I keep saying they’re a good football team now. How good? How good are we? I don’t know yet. But, I think it’s going to be a real tough football game.”
NOTES: Paterno confirmed that running back Brent Carter will have surgery to repair his injured ACL suffered Saturday at Wisconsin. ... wide receiver Brett Brackett is also expected to miss Saturday’s game after suffering a concussion against the Badgers. ... About his ailing leg, Paterno said it may have something to do with his hip. “I don’t know. But I haven’t got time to spend time going through a lot of examinations and things like that right now. I’m going to wait until the season is over and we’ll see what’s happened,” Paterno said. When asked if he would be coaching from the booth or the sideline Saturday, Paterno said he is taking it day by day and doesn’t know yet . ... pressed for support of quarterback Daryll Clark for the Heisman trophy, Paterno said: “Ahh, don’t get me into that. You guys are the guys that have gotta get involved in that. I don’t see the other guys. For me to tell you that this guy is better than that guy, better than that guy, better than that guy. ... I wish I had the luxury of just sitting there and listening to all the pundits say how this guy is great and that guy is great. ... I don’t know. I think Daryll Clark is a heckuva college football player right now, a heckuva college quarterback. Where would he rate? I don’t know. We got a lot of football to play yet. It doesn’t make so much sense for me to go out there and start saying, Well I think Daryll ought to be here, here or here. We’ve got a lot of football to play and a lot of things can happen in that period. Daryll’s just got to. ... we started out early saying he’s got to just stay focused on what he’s got to do, get better each week and we’ll see what happens.”
