As I watched Joe Paterno slur his words, yell gibberish that I was sure no one understood, and make more pointless attacks directed towards the media at a pep rally Friday night, I finally started to think that maybe it was time to acknowledge that Paterno should not be coaching football anymore.

Then, the old man proved me wrong.

He managed to work a football team that hadn't shown much heart all season into a frenzy that nearly earned them a win over defending national champion Ohio State.

Then he, and whoever else he was calling plays with at the end of the game, blew it all in a poorly managed final drive that was partially doomed from the beginning because the Nittany Lions had inexplicably burned all three of their timeouts.

And therefore I and everyone else that stands in between the knee-jerk, fire-the-coach-reactionaries and the die hards that are drawing up proposals for Paterno's canonization continue to consider the mind-blowing question about what to do with a 76-year old icon.

It just makes me thankful that it isn't my decision to make, and also glad that it's not one to be decided by a bunch of yahoos on message boards who decide all things with three-word slogans like "Joe Must Go" or "Joe is God."

It also makes me hope that it just goes back to Joe, and that he really will know when it's time.

Because asking President Graham Spanier or athletic director Tim Curley to decide whether Paterno should return or not is forcing them to make an impossible choice. There is just too much to consider.

You have to factor in a career that has included 338 wins and a season that has accounted for just two of them.

You have to realize, for better and for worse, that Penn State has been in every game it has played and had a shot to win, but that it hasn't once come through in the clutch.

You can't look past the fact that the squad has been inept offensively for most of the year, and that it is getting blown away at the line of scrimmage like it never has before.

The off-the-field problems, including the recent citations handed to wide receiver Tony Johnson and offensive lineman Tommy McHugh, call into question whether or not Paterno still has control of this squad. Some of his rants at press conferences, and his growing inability to deal with bad calls by officials, call into question whether he still has control of himself.

But on the other side, there is the added stuff that makes this debate truly unique: the things that Paterno has done for his football program and his university that no one else has.

The city of State College, the university itself and, of course, Beaver Stadium have exploded during Paterno's tenure based in large part on his reputation. Back when he took the job in 1966 when Rip Engle retired, a capacity crowd at Beaver Stadium brought in 46,284 people.

Now, the Blue and White game brings in that many and the real ones bring in over 100,000 every time. For a game like Nebraska last season, there are 110,000 people in the stands, and you don't have to be an economics major to know what that does for the State College business district.

And just in case anyone thought he hadn't done enough to help Penn State and State College, he and his wife Sue raised over $13 million to help renovate the East wing of Patee Library

Paterno has never had an NCAA violation in his 38 years of coaching and he still graduates his players like few others. In the latest graduation report done by the NCAA, the Penn State football team reported an 86 percent graduation rate, fourth best in Div. I-A.

And of course, while doing that, he's managed to win a whole lot of football games, more than anyone else in Div. I-A history before Bobby Bowden overtook him two weeks ago. He's also won two national championships, compiled five undefeated seasons, won more bowl games than anyone else, and did it at a school that had never won ten games before he came to town.

As he showed Saturday, he still has the ability to motivate his team to win, even if the offensive play calling sometimes makes that difficult to do.

So it all has to go back to aging icon himself, and even for him this is going to take a ton of thought. He has to truly consider whether he still has the capacity to bring his team back next season, or whether it would hurt the program. He has to consider his legacy, but also be able to realize that it won't matter much once he's gone. And he has to think about what his family would want him to do.

It's a question that's going to require him to do a lot of soul searching, and whenever he does finally decide to hang up his black Nike's, he's probably always going to wonder if he left at the right time. That will be especially true if the losing continues and he has to leave Penn State on a bad note.

But it's his legacy, his team, his career, his life. Though he might not be the coach he used to be, the fact that he was that good in that many different ways for so long means that he should be able to decide how it all ends.