Joe Paterno can't seem to win these days, and that's not talking about the scoreboard.

When he decides to punt on a close fourth down, the Penn State coach gets criticized for not having the confidence to go for it.

When he takes a risk, as he did in the second half Saturday when he called for a fake field goal deep in Purdue territory, he gets chastised for not taking the points.

Second-guessing was abound, but there was certainly one person in Paterno's corner -- Purdue coach Joe Tiller.

"I thought strategically they made a good call," Tiller said of the fake. "We weren't expecting the fake field goal when they ran it. That was a good call. To win a tight football game, you gotta have the courage to make a call like that and fortunately for us, our guys ran the ball down."

Trailing 17-13 at the start of the fourth quarter and the Boilermakers driving at midfield, the Nittany Lions completely stole Purdue's momentum when Calvin Lowry snagged a Kyle Orton overthrow and returned the interception for 12 yards.

On the move after the Boilermakers' first turnover of the season, the Lions drove down to the Purdue 6-yard line, poised to take the lead with a touchdown.

But on third-and-5, Zack Mills had no room to hit Mark Rubin in the end zone and the field goal unit trotted on to the field.

Mills stayed on to assume his holding duties, as he has all season. Thus the Boilermakers paid no attention and ran their basic field goal scheme.

But when the snap came to Mills, he sprinted right, attempting to catch Purdue's special teams off guard.

There was a crack of daylight, but the Boilermakers were able to swarm him and drag him down at the 3, a yard-and-a-half short of a first down and salvation.

Purdue took over on downs, and despite a strong defensive showing afterwards that forced another Orton interception, the Lions were not able to score again.

"We thought we had it," Paterno said. "We had practiced it all week. They gave us a look, and I thought we had it. And it would have given us a chance to score. Obviously, if it works it's a great play."

A Lions touchdown may have well turned the tide in a hard-fought game and there was reason to think that it would work.

Similar calls have worked perfectly for Penn State in recent history, twice with then-holder Chris Ganter catching opponents off-guard with a run.

In the middle of a furious comeback against Iowa in the fourth quarter of the 2002 game, Ganter ran almost an identical play on an extra-point try, slicing the same direction Mills tried for the 2-point conversion.

Later that season, Ganter took a snap for a field goal against Virginia and ran an option left, keeping the ball for a 30-yard touchdown.

But on Saturday the Boilermakers were able to improvise and beat their blockers to Mills, perhaps saving the game.

Along with Taylor Stubblefield's second half touchdown, it was a play that Purdue "had to have" to pull out the win, Tiller said.

"We have a call, it's 'safe,' which means our defense is looking for fakes," Tiller said. "And we didn't have the call on, our guys just rallied to it. So to me, that was a huge stop."