After a 24-6, loss to Toledo on Sept. 2, 2000, Larry Johnson spouted off about the predictability of the Penn State offense.

His rant to the media would radically change his career at Penn State.

The coaching staff seethed over a player letting such gripes leak to the media. Stuff like that doesn't happen at Penn State. And even worse, it was a coach's son doing the talking.

Johnson was immediately cast as a bad seed, an impatient malcontent and, worst of all, not worthy of being a Penn State football player.

"I wanted to get out of here," Johnson said last week after revealing he considered transferring to Maryland or North Carolina. "I wanted to get away from it all and start a brand new season somewhere else. There were a lot of people looking down on me in the football program and I wanted to get away from them."

But a short talk with his father changed that.

"I told Larry that he could stay here and admit to his mistake and then learn from it," Larry Johnson Sr., the defensive line coach, said. "I told him he could persevere and become a good back."

Now, Larry Johnson the younger is not merely a good back. He is one of the best in the nation.

And a funny thing happened in the two years since he made those comments. The offense he so maligned became, at the beginning of this season, very unpredictable. Penn State was suddenly a passing team and Zack Mills was winging the ball all over the field. Every drive saw a trick play tried, and multi-talented backup quarterback Michael Robinson was all over the field.

As soon as that offense faltered, in a 42-35 loss to Iowa at home, the Penn State offense went back to being predictable.

Oh, so predictable.

First down: give it to Johnson. Second down: give it to Johnson. Third down? It seldom went that far. Johnson averaged over eight yards a carry.

He went off tackle or up the middle or ran the option. None of it mattered. He got the ball and he found yardage.

"There was a point in there where I think Larry just got into a zone, like Michael Jordan did back in his day." Johnson Sr. said. "He had done it in pee wee football and in high school, but to see him do it here was something special."

Something special that the students of this university will never forget.

John put together the greatest single season in the history of a program that has consistently produced superb collegiate tailbacks. He speaks of those backs with reverence, and thanks them for allowing him this opportunity. Even when he was young, Johnson was enamored with the mythical figure of the running back, at once graceful and powerful.

"He would sit and watch the tape Great Running Backs in NFL History over and over again," Johnson Sr. said. "I bet it's been watched well over 1,000 times."

You can tell that Johnson has watched the old-school backs: Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Gale Sayers.

"He gets up real slow off the ground," his father said. "He stalks back to the huddle, doesn't say anything to anyone. He's just like Jim Brown. He picked up those mannerisms."

Like Payton, Johnson has learned to wait for a play to develop, to dissect hard-charging defenses aimed right at him.

Like Sayers, Johnson is both surprisingly quick and strong. When a defender doesn't know which attribute to be more worried about he never stands a chance.

Just as the images of those players run through Johnson's memory, no one who watched him this season will shake the images of what he did on the football field.

And so, his comments that two years ago so changed his life will not signify his days here at Penn State.

But they will never go away.

"It's something we want to forget, something we feel we've moved past," Johnson Sr. said. "But it always comes back and it's something we have to deal with. One of the easiest things for a youngster to do is to run from his problem or make an excuse. With this, Larry has never done that."

Only by persevering through people telling him he couldn't and wouldn't do it could Johnson become the back he is today. Twenty-three times this season, Johnson found the end zone. Twenty-three times he handed the ball to the official and trotted to the sideline.

Last year, on the weekends, when he wasn't getting the chance, he spent his time listening to his father tell him that the chance would someday come.

Doesn't it seem silly and insufficient to say that, this year when the chance came, Johnson made most of it?

He did much more. He proved to everyone that he is more than worthy of being a Penn State football player.

In the end, Larry Johnson turned out to be everything a Penn State football player should be.