With Penn State trailing by 14 points and less than 10 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, the already thin Beaver Stadium crowd grew even sparser as several thousand ticket holders began to file out of the quiet steel bowl.

Maybe they knew something the rest didn't want to believe, something the players may have been thinking to themselves with the most crucial juncture in the game still ahead.

The Penn State football team couldn't pull the three facets of its team together when it counted on Saturday, continuing a disturbing trend in its 30-23 loss to Wisconsin on Saturday.

It seems that in every game, the Nittany Lions find themselves in position to win the game but without the heart to do so.

After the game, everyone seemed to have a different excuse for the loss that dropped the Lions (2-4) to 0-2 in the Big Ten for the second time since 2001.

"We get lucky," Wisconsin football coach Barry Alvarez said about his team's ability to win on consecutive trips to Beaver Stadium and three out of the four times it has played here since Penn State joined the Big Ten. "It's a hard place to win and we've been fortunate the last times through. I feel fortunate this time."

Teams make their own luck, though, and it seems Penn State has been curiously unable to find a four-leaf clover lately.

It's also unfair for Alvarez to demean his team's ability to counter-punch. Following Penn State's first touchdown of the game, a one-yard touchdown plunge by Sean McHugh that gave the Lions a 9-7 lead, kicker Robbie Gould missed the extra point.

Wisconsin's Brandon Williams returned the ensuing kickoff 55 yards and the Badgers managed to kick a field goal on the drive that, rather than tying the game at 10, gave them a lead they would never relinquish. It was just one of many clips on the Penn State special teams' blooper reel that included the kickoff return, a punt return for a touchdown that put the Lions in a 14-point hole, two lost fumbles and two missed field goals.

"I don't know whether it's as bad as we have ever had, we just obviously weren't good," Penn State football coach Joe Paterno said when asked about his special teams. "We just weren't good, I don't know what to tell you."

That simply summary -- "we just weren't good" -- extended well beyond Penn State's especially bad special teams. Clinging to an eight-point lead midway through the third quarter, Wisconsin (5-1, 2-0) needed to convert a fourth-and-three to keep an important drive going, but was penalized for delay of game. During the ensuing celebration, both Penn State linebacker Derek Wake and defensive end Sam Ruhe ran off the field and left the Lions with only 10 defenders to counter the Wisconsin attack.

While Badgers' quarterback Jim Sorgi missed wideout Lee Evans and the Lions got the ball back, it was emblematic of the entire Penn State effort -- disorganized and eerily familiar.

Even though the Lions defense held Wisconsin scoreless on three consecutive possessions at the start of the second half, it was the Badgers' fourth drive after halftime that turned the game. In a 13-play, 80-yard series that took almost seven minutes off the clock, Wisconsin ran the ball every single play for the touchdown that proved to be the difference.

And it came just as the Lions had closed to within a touchdown of the Badgers on Michael Robinson's 73-yard touchdown pass to tight end Matt Kranchick, the longest scoring play of both players' careers. The crowd, which seemed at least 10,000 short of the announced 107,851, finally had something around which to rally. So did the players. So did the coaches.

As much as the video before the game touts grit, determination and will as the Penn State way, 2003 has seen the team out-muscled and out-hustled with the game on the line. While Robinson finished the day with 379 yards passing -- Penn State's second-highest single-game total -- the Lions mustered only 45 yards with an amazingly pedestrian running game.

The receivers finally caught passes for the first time this season, but couldn't help Penn State hold onto the ball. The Lions had the ball for fewer than four minutes in the third quarter and just over six minutes in the second half.

"In the past we might not have played a perfect game and lost," Williams said about his team's play in the fourth quarter. "The difference is we didn't play so good but we came out and did what we had to do to win the game and that's the important thing."

It's a lesson the Penn State players need to learn and something their fans knew they hadn't yet.