He emerged from the Minnesota locker room, sweat still beading off his forehead, a tired look in his eye.

Finally, after the most remarkable quarterbacking odyssey in Golden Gopher history, Tim Schade's right arm was at his side.

"My goal is to win, and we didn't so I can't really say I played good," Schade said after the Gophers fell to Penn State, 38-20, on Saturday afternoon.

The truth is, Schade wasn't good -- he was spectacular, amazing, remarkable. Anything but good.

"He was a good quarterback. He did everything he had to to get rid of the ball," defensive lineman Lou Benfatti said.

No, Lou, not just good. Look at the stats -- 34 for 66, a school-record 478 yards and two touchdowns, a performance which overshadowed his four interceptions.

That is not a typo -- 66 passes was a Beaver Stadium record and a Tim Schade record.

"65 times?" Schade was incorrectly informed after the game. "Is that what it was?"

Yet that was not all -- Schade was also the team's leading rusher with 64 yards, most of which came on a strangely constructed quarterback draw.

"Those were pretty good," Minnesota Coach Jim Wacker said. "You've got to be a creative coach to come up with something that fancy."

But when Schade threw the ball, it seemed like every one of his passes was in the vicinity of Omar Douglas. The senior wide receiver caught 11 passes for 193 yards and a touchdown, erasing an ugly first quarter in which he fumbled two kickoffs.

On Saturday, Schade-to-Douglas made Montana-to-Rice look like a sideshow.

"Omar's a great player," Wacker said. "He's as fine a receiver as I've had the privilege of coaching, and I've had some pretty good ones."

Douglas suffered a hip flexer after making an unbelievable catch between two defenders in the fourth quarter, and will rest for the next three or four days. He deserves it.

"It's all a matter of concentration, and I just have to keep concentrating on the ball and not worry about what's going on around you," Douglas said.

Yet it seemed Douglas lacked concentration after dropping the first two Penn State kickoffs of the game. Those and other special teams blunders -- including a 67-yard punt return by the Lions' Shelly Hammonds -- victimized the Gophers early on.

That combined with Schade's four interceptions put the Gophers behind 28-7 early in the second quarter. They were unable to burrow their way out of that hole.

Minnesota came as close as 31-20, but Schade's golden arm finally began to tire, and the Gophers' fake punt attempt went awry.

"I thought it was there," Wacker said. "I thought we'd run for 30 stinking yards on that play."

Instead, they ran for three truly stinking yards, Penn State took over and scored to put the game out of reach.

"Today, I'm the dumbest fool in the world, but that's alright -- I've been there before," Wacker joked.

Not true -- the coach's innovative, run-and-shoot offense had the Penn State defense off-guard all day.

"They do a lot of stuff, they are picking and they are going to complete some passes on you," Penn State Coach Joe Paterno said. "The only guy that was a question mark was their quarterback and he looked pretty darn good."

No, Joe, not just good.