As the afternoon sun gave way to the red-hued evening sky, No. 22 slowly strolled off the field under a sea of fans clamoring for his attention.

Turning left past a group of well-wishers pressed against a metal fence, Austin Scott calmly walked down the dark hall toward the Penn State locker room, slowly fading until he finally disappeared behind the heavy metal door.

It was a quiet, almost surreal fade to black for the tailback on a day on which virtually nothing had been calm or slow.

In his first collegiate action, Scott carried 12 times and gained 69 yards for a Penn State ground attack that tallied 186 rushing yards in the second half on its way to a 23-10 victory over Temple Saturday at Beaver Stadium.

Scott, the prep phenomenon who carried for a Pennsylvania state record 3,853 rushing yards and 53 touchdowns last season as a senior for class-AAAA state champion Parkland High School, touched the ball just once for five yards in the first half, but exploded for 64 in the second.

And the 101,553 in attendance made it abundantly clear that Scott was their man, booing lustily when he trotted to the sideline for a breather in the third quarter. After the Lions' (1-0) season-opening victory over the Owls (0-1), Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was a little bit reserved in his praise of Scott and fellow freshman tailback Tony Hunt, who rushed three times for 12 yards in the fourth quarter.

"I think they both handled themselves well, they both hung on to the ball," Paterno said. "They went in the right direction. There was a couple of days at practice they didn't do that."

At times on Saturday, the Penn State offense looked equally as lost. After an inconsistent, rhythm-less first half, Tony Johnson's 56-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Zack Mills was the difference as the Lions clung to a 7-3 lead.

But while many of the players were cutting their teeth on their first taste of collegiate competition -- Paterno said 28 of the 65 players hadn't even spent a Friday night in Toftrees, Penn State's customary game-night residence for home games -- it was a sure-handed sophomore that made perhaps the biggest impact.

Michael Robinson, the sometimes back-up quarterback, sometimes slash back and full-time athlete lined up to start the game at tailback and highlighted his nine-carry, 84-yard rushing performance with a 53-yard ramble over right end in the fourth quarter.

The rush energized a Penn State team waiting to take command of an 11-point ball game and carried the offense to the Temple 19. Five plays later, Penn State fullback Sean McHugh plunged into the end zone from four yards out and the game was all but settled.

The athleticism and agility of Robinson, who did virtually everything but take flight while lining up at tailback, wideout, H-back and quarterback Saturday, allowed the offense to pull a variety of tricks out of its hat.

"That's the deal, man -- he's an athlete," a wowed Johnson said after the game. "That's something we expected from him. The coaches know he can't sit on the sideline the whole game without having the ball in his hands."

While the coaches and the Owls defense -- which limited Penn State to a paltry 124 yards of total offense in the first half -- had their hands full, Johnson and his receiving corps had a different problem. Johnson dropped two passes and had just the one catch and Terrance Phillips dropped another key pass early in the game that halted the offense's momentum.

For his part, Mills was under-whelming for most of the game under center, completing six of 17 passes for 79 yards in an offense with a renewed respect for the aerial attack after the loss of 2,000-yard rusher Larry Johnson. He often seemed uncomfortable and hurried while in the pocket.

And it was Lawrence Wade's third-quarter interception of Mills' pass into double coverage that put Temple on the Penn State 11-yard line in the third quarter and gave the Owls a huge surge of momentum with the potential to take the lead.

But a clutch tackle by linebacker Deryck Toles, who stopped Temple quarterback Walter Washington a yard into the back field, a pass defended by cornerback Alan Zemaitis and a missed 26-yard field goal allowed the defense to breathe a sigh of relief.

For eleven men trying to halt a Temple spread offense, it was a day often filled with sighs. Running back Makonnen Fenton rushed for 118 yards, 102 of which came by the first play of the third quarter, and the Temple offense tallied 357 yards of total offense.

"I personally didn't like the inconsistency," said linebacker Derek Wake, who blocked a punt in the first quarter and was everywhere on the field. "One series was three-and-out and the next series we let them go down to the ten-yard line. I'm not particularly proud of that, so I think we need to work on that."

Scott may have a lot to work on as well. Making an exit, however, isn't one of them.