BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- There's a large streak running down the middle of Indiana's Memorial Stadium field, and it's not the path left by Larry Johnson's trampling.
After the game, two tractors circled in zamboni-like fashion between the hash marks. One dragged a screen over the two inch-deep sand and spread it evenly throughout -- much like a baseball infield -- while the other followed and flattened the surface down with a roller.
The end result was a brown streak of smooth sand sandwiched between two green pastures. The IU symbol in the middle of the field had been smeared out completely, a process started by Penn State during Saturday's 58-25 win.
When the tractors finished, the lights went out on another year of football in Bloomington, where there hasn't been a winning team since 1994. Everything about the Hoosier program radiates an aura of rebirth and renewal. The stadium is being renovated, but still looks decidedly second best in comparison to one of the most charismatic buildings in all of college basketball, Assembly Hall.
Such is life at a basketball school.
Saturday, the temperature was 37 and dropped as the game wore on, causing the number of fans in the stadium to dwindle. Supposedly, there were 27,454 people in the stands at the start of the game. By the end, that number had dropped well below 15,000.
For a group of players that has already played in front of more people than any college football team ever before, it was a drastic change. But it made no difference.
"I'm not playing for 200,000 or 100,000 or 50 people," Penn State tailback Larry Johnson said.
Paterno expressed some concern last week that his team would not be emotionally ready for a game with such a small crowd.
"I told the team, you're going to go into a situation when you're really going to have to motivate yourselves," Paterno said after the game. "It's worse going into a stadium like this than one where the stadium is packed and there's some electricity."
Several players said they felt as though they were back in high school. Defensive end Michael Haynes said it was the worst field he ever played on, by far. That's coming from a guy who played his first three years of high school ball near a military base in Panama.
"I was really surprised when I walked out there," he said. "I was like 'Wow, this really is sand.' You can tell from film that between the hashes it wasn't very good, but until you get out there and really get accustomed to it, you struggle."
The loose footing may have hurt Haynes and his fellow linemen most. Their battle comes down to who can dig in and press forward fastest, and that's practically impossible on sand.
"Our cleats weren't holding" defensive tackle Jimmy Kennedy said. "You can't get a good take-off. That's our front four's strength. We couldn't do anything today."
In his press conference last week, first-year Indiana coach Gerry DiNardo said that all the sand had been removed from the stadium. He also said that the Hoosiers focused on replacing several practice fields for various sports because they were deemed unsafe, and could not dedicate enough money to improve the field.
