This has been the kind of week, emotionally speaking, that could break any team's spirits.

Two quarterbacks were injured Saturday in the span of an hour, one sustaining a concussion and temporary paralysis. Senior safety Andrew Guman lost a grandfather, and former Penn State player and State College resident Bob Mitinger passed away. And Penn State coach Joe Paterno's son-in-law remains in intensive care after head injuries sustained in a bicycle accident.

"We have had a tough year," Paterno said yesterday at his weekly press conference. "It has been tough."

But with all the topics that visibly moved Paterno yesterday, there was one he was more eager than usual to discuss: plain old football.

"We are going through some tough things, and I don't want to get into that," Paterno said. "I would rather talk about our football team and talk about what a tough team they are going to play."

So talk about his football team he did, because, despite all that's happened, he and his players must travel to Minnesota -- arguably their toughest opponent yet -- come Saturday. And the biggest aspect of his football team to talk about is its quarterback situation, which is still unclear.

First-stringer Zack Mills remains questionable for the Minnesota game due to an AC separation in his right shoulder, though his personal plans are to certainly make a return.

"Zack Mills was out [on the field] yesterday, and we told him to take it easy, but he is optimistic that he might be able to go this week," Paterno said. "I think they think they can strap it up and the whole bit, but if there is any danger, we won't use him."

Junior Chris Ganter is listed as the backup for this weekend, after finishing out the Wisconsin game, but there is still some question as to whether or not Penn State will use true freshman Anthony Morelli, who has seen limited action in two games. Paterno said that he considered playing Morelli last weekend, but opted to stick with Ganter, who, unlike Morelli, had seen reps with the first team in that week's practices.

For Minnesota, however, Paterno plans to get three quarterbacks ready -- Mills, Ganter and Morelli -- which opens the door for Morelli to see time if Mills is unable to play.

"We were not comfortable that Anthony would be familiar with a lot of the things [against Wisconsin] because we hadn't been practicing them a lot during the week," Paterno said. "We were working with a plan with Mike [Robinson] and Zack...I was reluctant to put Anthony in there at that stage. Having said that...this week, obviously, we are not going to have Michael. We have to think out what we want to do. Chris and Anthony will have to a part of that and have a lot more reps."

But don't count on any trick plays if Morelli -- or Ganter -- is under center.

"We are, obviously, going to tie [the offense] down a little bit." Paterno said. "There won't be some options that we had available to us when we had Michael Robinson able to do some things. Chris Ganter and Anthony Morelli are both capable kids. We are going to go ahead with what we know we can do."

Take that and rewind it back

The instant replay experiment, which is being implemented in the Big Ten this season, didn't seem to help tight end Isaac Smolko Saturday night against Wisconsin. On third-and-15 in the second quarter, Ganter lobbed a pass over Smolko and his defender, but Smolko dove and extended his body, seemingly emerging with the ball. However, the referees didn't declare it as such, ruling it incomplete though not all agreed.

"I, from the sideline, didn't think he caught it," Paterno said. "He came out and said, 'I caught it coach.' I said, 'No, you didn't.' He said, 'I caught it.' It is tough for me to second-guess the officials when I am looking and I didn't think he caught it, and I am a little bit partisan."

Review of the tapes, however erased all doubt from Paterno's mind.

"When you look at the tapes, I don't think there is any question that he caught the football," Paterno said. "Why they didn't have a replay? I don't know."

Coaching connection

Paterno has been vocal about the current quality of coaches in the Big Ten, but when it comes to Minnesota coach Glen Mason, he values more than just his coaching ability. When a Minnesota media member relayed to Paterno the fact that Mason was surprised a Jersey guy (Mason) and a Brooklyn guy (Paterno) got along so well, Paterno broke into his biggest smile of the conference.

"He is a guy that I like, and I am glad he feels the same way about me," Paterno said. "We have a good relationship."