Close, but no cigar.

This was the sentiment I heard from Penn State fans as they filtered out of Beaver Stadium Saturday afternoon, following a 6-4 demoralizing defeat to Iowa.

Close, you say?

I'll tell you about close. Or better yet, try asking the Penn State field hockey team -- the players and coach Char Morett can tell you a few stories about close, difficult, disheartening losses.

Morett's Nittany Lions (9-8, 3-2 Big Ten) first experienced that punched-in-the-gut feeling after a season opening 2-1 loss to Old Dominion, in which the Lady Monarchs scored the winning goal with just five seconds remaining.

After four more one-goal losses to ranked opponents (two of which came in sudden death overtime), Penn State was at a crossroads heading into an Oct. 15 matchup with Iowa -- a team that was feisty, but definitely not as talented as the goal-starved Lions. Morett's team and the Hawkeyes battled into the second overtime before an Iowa goal ended the fray -- dropping the jaws and shoulders of the Lions, not to mention their place in the Big Ten standings.

As the team's beat reporter, I'd witnessed this scene before. Seconds after the goal, I didn't even need to look at Morett to know that she had folded her arms, lowered her head, and had begun to formulate a speech to deliver to her disappointed squad.

So familiar was this scenario that Morett didn't even wait for me to approach her after the game. She actually came up to me, and didn't even need me to finish my all too familiar questions regarding this latest close loss -- she just answered as though she knew exactly what was coming.

Still think Joe Paterno's football team keeps coming close? Don't let the baseball-like score of Saturday's game against Iowa be your only determinant. To say the Lions' anemic offense was mediocre and had a decent chance of scoring would be quite generous. The offense that has netted a total of two touchdowns in the last four games looked like it would be hard-pressed to score on a Pop Warner defense.

It's fitting that the "Zombie Nation" techno song was played time after time on Saturday, as the Penn State offense looked like it was being run with the creativity and imagination of, well, zombies.

In the fourth quarter, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz showed the ultimate sign of disrespect for the offensive Penn State offense. With the score at 6-2 and the Hawkeyes backed up on their own 1-yard line, he astutely recognized that the Lions punt block unit and returner Calvin Lowry were a much greater threat to score on this sad day than was the Penn State offense, or even kicker Robbie Gould for that matter. Keeping this in mind, Ferentz had the Hawkeyes take a safety, gambling that the Lions would be unable to muster so much as a field goal on their remaining drives.

Needless to say, Ferentz came up with the perfecta on this particular bet.

The Penn State offense was close all right. Close to wretchedness. Close to being booed off the field had the Lions defense not been spectacular.

If this is starting to sound like a rant against the much-maligned Penn State offense, it's not. This is a suggestion to reconsider the use of the word "close" when talking about athletic events -- namely Lion football.

There are, indeed, some striking similarities between the football and field hockey teams: the defense picking up the slack for an inconsistent offense; the benching of a senior captain or two (although the reasons for which are quite different); the absence of any good luck whatsoever.

But please, please do not begin to think of the football team as a crew that accumulates close, hard-fought losses until you examine the miserably tight defeats of Morett's team.

Only when you compare the ways in which the two teams' games have typically ended, you'll find that really, it's not even close.