A few weeks ago one of my esteemed colleagues explained the arrangement we football writers have at the Collegian — McDonald the optimist, Gorney the realist and Rice the embittered pessimist, the guy who thinks that Penn State's proverbial glass isn't half-empty, but rather, three-quarters empty.

I'd like to clarify that: It really doesn't matter how full or empty the Nittany Lions' collective glass is, because it has a crack the size of Nittany Valley in it.

All season long we've listened to Joe Paterno and his players tell us how great the team's weekly practices have been, how the team is comfortable with the schemes in place and that all they need to do to succeed is just execute those schemes more effectively.

For a while, I thought this was just a smokescreen, that the team was secretly dealing with some unseen turmoil which they would inevitably work out, return to greatness and all would be Happy again in Happy Valley.

But as the season reaches the midway point, it seems that JoePa and his troops were right -- the practices have been going well, the schemes are solid.

One little problem: this team doesn't show up on game days. Paterno and his assistants are pouring the plays into the glass on Friday, and by late Saturday afternoon, the crack has done its work, and the glass is all but empty. Paterno told us this week that, going into the Michigan game, all signs pointed to a Penn State win. He knew that he'd be facing a solid Wolverine squad, but his team had performed well enough in practice to make their coach as confident as he'd been all season.

Then, before you could say "Butterfingers McGee," the Lions dropped three straight passes and were well on their way to yet another embarrassing afternoon of football.

For one reason or another, Penn State can't get it done during those sixty minutes of the week that matter most. Maybe it's a mental thing, maybe it's fate or maybe the zebras have been conspiring against the team all year long.

I don't know whether or not the Lions can get it done, I just know that they haven't yet.

Tomorrow, for the first time all season, I'll have the chance to watch the Nits on television (the optimist and the realist will be flying to Evanston this afternoon), where I can take in the action from a more objective viewpoint. I want to see the Penn State team that the rest of the country has seen this season (before it changed the channel).

Instead of sifting through first-quarter statistics in the press box or deciding what stories I want in Monday's paper, I plan to focus on nothing but the game to see if I can figure out just what the problem is.

I plan on watching for the little things — the expressions on Paterno's face and how his lips move as his players trot off the field. The Lions' body language when they come out of the tunnel and line up for the opening kickoff.

I'll be looking for emotion, enthusiasm, the ability to answer the bell when momentum comes calling.

In other words, all the little intangibles that were the key ingredients to Penn State wins of the past, the intangibles that are lacking this season.

Because if you've talked to as many players or gone through Paterno's press conference quotes as many times as I have, you wouldn't think there was a problem. You'd find it hard to believe that the team you hear about during the week is the same team that's been suiting up in the Blue and White and taking the field Saturdays this fall.

It's not. Sure, I'm a pessimist. But I thought my preseason record prediction of 5-6 was pessimistic. That pick was based upon the standard I thought the Lions would perform to. Had I known they would perform to their current standard, I wouldn't have thought twice about penciling in an 0-11.

This is not a case of Jekyll and Hyde, a team that shifts from game-breakers to heartbreakers on a single play. Nor are the Lions comparable to a caterpillar that simply needs time to spread its wings.

This is a team that can only be as good as it allows itself to be. The glass may be half-empty, three-quarters empty — it may even be full. But until this team starts making the plays on Saturdays, they may as well not even have a glass at all.