It must have been a tough week for JoePa.

First, his team loses to Ohio State. Then, he's accused of being the next Woody Hayes for his treatment of officials. And now, to top everything off, his bronze likeness outside Beaver Stadium gets crowned with a pumpkin. At least the jack-o-lantern was smiling.

And just think of the team.

The Nittany Lions get beat by what their coach will readily tell you is a good Buckeye team. Then they take an equally bad beating in the media for having one of those games. And worst of all, they had to spend some of their week talking about how they're all lovey-dovey with their coach and each other. If you didn't know better, listening to the conference calls you might have thought you dialed into one of those men's movement meetings where guys sit around a fire bare-chested talking about their feelings, while always offering a shoulder to cry on.

It's not to say this group of Lions doesn't genuinely like one another, but do you really think they enjoy talking about it? Do you think it makes anyone's day to describe how endeared they are to the 250-pound galoot three lockers down?

Come on, these people want to talk about football, and how great it is to run somebody off the field. They want to fill reporters' notebooks with stories about the dumb stuff they did at practice because Penn State is so good they can goof around a little. After the Lions humiliated Nebraska you didn't hear these pledges of fidelity to team and coach. But that's because you didn't have to.

You see, Penn State has lost three games, all against good teams, two of which, Iowa and Ohio State, will probably share the conference crown. Just to make the heartache a bit worse, all three losses came in winnable games, two in overtime.

Against Iowa, they came out flatter than last week's keg, but still mounted a comeback that would have gone down in Lions' lore had they pulled it out. At the Big House, it took three quarters for both team's engines to get revving, and Michigan just finished with a higher RPM rating. Then the team's nightmares in Columbus continued when the offense couldn't get going in a defensive shoot-out.

There were refereeing snafus and there were bungled plays. The point is, Penn State lost and now its team has to explain it. But just saying it lost isn't good enough.

So instead, the Lions are forced to talk about team unity, because if they don't, people will assume there's dissention in the ranks. If Paterno doesn't go out and talk about how this is his most beloved team, it's going to be read as him being upset with his players. And after Paterno espouses said love, all his players get asked about said love and they respond in kind. (Also, did you notice the only time last year's 0-4 start comes up is in the context of how well Penn State's come together since?)

So, isn't it fitting that on All Souls' Day the Lions get an opportunity to redeem themselves from this rhetorical purgatory?

It's pretty simple, a win tomorrow against the Illini means that all this state-of-the-team crap fades away. Basically, if Penn State wins in remotely convincing fashion, Paterno and his troops will get to spend their post-game interviews talking about how the Lions are bowl eligible for the first time since 1999.

This isn't a question of whether or not the Lions have something to play for, but rather how Penn State finishes out the season. If the Lions win out, easily foreseeable considering the remaining schedule, and the season can be considered a qualified success.

And maybe then everybody will get to be happy next week and not be guilted into telling the whole world about how close-knit they are. Or, at least, pumpkins won't be quite so easy to find.