Two wins to end the season wouldn't be enough to stop the e-mails filled with invective. The harsh phone messages. This much, Jay Paterno knew.

This is part of the deal when you're a coach on a team that is just 26-33 in its past five seasons -- and your last name happens to be Paterno.

But sitting down and looking particularly laid back after the season-ending win over Michigan State, Paterno just smiled when the topic of his "fanmail" was mentioned.

"Oh yeah, I got a few guys," Paterno said. "And I had my revenge. I can't reveal how I did it or what it was, but trust me. No viruses. But they may get spammed. Put it that way. They may be on some people's spam lists."

Those last two wins against Indiana and Michigan State must have been particularly satisfying for Paterno, Penn State's oft-maligned quarterbacks coach and part of the Nittany Lions' two-headed offensive play-calling system. In a season in which the Lions offense ranged from embarrassing to slightly average during its Big Ten schedule, Jay Paterno has again taken the brunt of the criticism from the fan base and media alike.

The Lions finished the season averaging 17.7 points per game, compared to just 15.3 per game given up by their defense. The ridiculous defensive numbers would suggest more than just four wins, but take out a 47-point outburst against Akron and a 37-point showing against Central Florida, and that offensive average dips to just 12.2 points per game.

Paterno is an easy target. Of course he is. As long as he remains at Penn State, the son of Joe Paterno, the son of the most influential man at Penn State, will always be under intense scrutiny as that word "nepotism" gets tossed around. In many ways the two can be hard for people to separate, if only because of a shared name.

"Anybody who would think that Joe would keep somebody like me around because of the fact that he's married to my mom, that's just not his style," Jay said. "And there were some frustrating times this year and I just said, 'Gee, I don't know,' and he'd say, 'Hey, Jay. Relax. You're doing fine.' And he goes, 'Believe me, if you weren't doing fine, I'd tell you.' Which he would."

Jay, for his part, admits that he always evaluates himself when the offense struggles and said that he probably tends to be a little harder on himself than he needs to be. But in the end, the question always comes back to his family, which is the reason Jay has gradually become the program's pariah as the team has struggled. While his father quotes Churchill and Hamlet and all manners of Shakespeare, talking to Jay reveals he is just as eclectic, if not more so, while discussing how he has been drawn into the center of public criticism.

"It comes with the territory," he said. "It's just the way it is. To use a name from one of my favorite movies, Animal House, if my name was Fawn Leibowitz, I wouldn't be ... if I was somebody like that, if my last name wasn't Paterno, I probably wouldn't be in the middle of it. People wouldn't even know who the heck I am. There's good and bad with everything and having the last name Paterno is good and bad."

Though at this stage of the game, a cynic might wonder what good that last name has done recently for Jay Paterno. Over the past two seasons, the football team has instituted a gag order of sorts on its assistant coaches, who are now typically only made available to the media at the end of the season or in extenuating circumstances.

As such, Jay rarely gets to defend himself in public. But when he does get that opportunity, one can't help but wonder if he's merely adding fuel to the fire as he adopts more and more mannerisms and tactics from his father.

Those who snicker when Joe Paterno insists he doesn't read the papers could only nod knowingly when Jay parrots the same line.

"I have really made it a policy," Jay said of ignoring the newspaper that shows up on his front stoop. "My brother Scott will call me and say, 'Hey, I can't believe that they wrote this, or...' and I say, 'Look, please, don't tell me. OK? Deal with it yourselves.' I say I don't wanna deal with that stuff. And I know I'm capable of doing a good job and I know what kind of job I'm doing, so I'm really not too worried about what people say."

Which is a decidedly good thing, if one frequents any number of Penn State message boards, where father and son are typically labeled the sources of the program's ills. Not to mention a breeding ground for conspiracy theory and rumor, both of which have grown exponentially this season as Joe Paterno's future has been debated more than ever.

Like that never-ending suspicion on the minds of some that Jay is being groomed to succeed his father, creating this exchange between him and a reporter:

"Joe said he wants the next guy to be in-house and people are always talking about you because you're here," a reporter asked.

"Not this year, they're not," Paterno said.

"Is that something you're interested in?"

"What, being the head coach?"

"Being the head coach here."

And, in true Paterno fashion, Jay just laughed and took a cue from dad, who knows a thing or two about dancing around questions.

"You're putting the cart way in front of the horse right now," he said. "I'm just going home right now and I'm gonna pass out and just be excited as hell, spend some time with my kids, go out and recruit. And actually I don't want that day to get here any time soon. So I really don't think too much about it."

Like father, like son.