Of everything that Penn State quarterback Zack Mills played through Saturday -- the booing, the hard hits, the pair of interceptions -- worst of all was the misfortune that no one, including Mills, was aware of during the game itself.

"He actually got a concussion early in that game; we didn't know it," Penn State coach Joe Paterno said yesterday at his weekly press conference. "He had some problem reading signals and those kinds of things."

Mills was removed in the third quarter of Saturday's 6-4 loss to Iowa because he felt groggy, but it wasn't determined that he had sustained a mild concussion until tests were run after the game. Because of the injury, Mills' status is officially listed as day-to-day as the team prepares to face Ohio State this weekend.

"It is doubtful that Zack will play this week. I think he's taken a lot of tough hits, and he didn't practice yesterday, and I doubt if he'll practice today," Paterno said before yesterday's practice. "So when I say he may not play on Saturday, then we've gotta be ready for Mike Robinson to play quarterback and somebody else has to start at the flanker."

Paterno said that neither he nor Mills was sure on which play the concussion occurred, and tight end Isaac Smolko, who was made available following Paterno, did not notice a drastic change in Mills through the course of the game.

"There might have been only like one time I noticed him stuttering a little bit," Smolko said, "but you couldn't really tell there was anything wrong with him."

The offense is preparing for the weekend as if Mills will not play, but should his status change, it figures to easily make the adjustment since preparations are, apparently, the same for either quarterback.

"This week as an offense we're just gonna prepare like we don't have [Mills], and if we do have him, that's a bonus for us," Smolko said. "We're not gonna change anything how we prepare at all. Regardless of whether we have him or not, our game plan's gonna be the same."

Paterno added that true freshman Anthony Morelli, who has seen limited action in three games this season, will not play this weekend because "he is not adequately prepared."

Pointing fingers

With his team sitting at 2-5, Paterno won't hear of putting blame on anyone other than himself. "You should be critical of me," he said. "I am the boss. I hate it when you guys are critical of kids or critical of the staff."

But, though he wants any criticism to be directed at him, that doesn't mean that he welcomes the criticism, or, furthermore, that he has the answers that would erase it.

"I have no clear-cut answer to any of the problems we have," Paterno said. "I think we just have to keep working at it, put the ball in the end zone a couple of times and go from there."

And when asked what areas he thinks he personally needs to work on, he didn't have a solution there, either.

"I am not sure," Paterno said, "but I still think that is where it has to be done."

Smolko's status

Smolko, who suffered a dislocated right wrist against Minnesota, said he had surgery to put a screw in his bone last Monday during the bye week. He has played through the injury, wearing a brace on his hand, but admitted that it has limited his ability to block.

"It's really frustrating for me because I haven't been able to block as well as I thought I did at the beginning of the season," Smolko said. "Pass catching, it's not that bad because I got all my fingers and everything. There's nothing I can do about it but play with it."