ANN ARBOR, Mich. --
Don't panic.
Joe Paterno wasn't panicking. He was pacing the sidelines during what was arguably the greatest game of football his Penn State football team has participated in for the last 11 years.
Paterno, with bloodshot eyes magnified by those infamous glasses, was so eager to move on from Saturday's loss to Michigan that he called it a night in the media room after about only seven minutes.
"How 'bout it guys, OK?" he asked, as if he needed to seek anyone's permission to try to get out of Ann Arbor as fast as he could.
He looked tired in losing, but his perspective was still healthy.
The Penn State fans were tired and losing it, though.
Just one night before, those same football prospectors made the pioneering journey westward across the wastelands of Ohio to take over an infamous Wolverine bar -- "The Brown Jug" -- with the usual cacophony of "Oh! Oh! Oh! Let's Go State!"
The exuberance of yelling that forced local police to tell the bar to stop serving alcohol and admitting patrons past 1 a.m. was replaced with encores of "Hail to the Victors" less than 24 hours later.
No more undefeated season. No more Rose Bowl. The fans weren't quite panicking yet, but they were closer to the breaking point.
Just don't panic.
A steely quarterback who had gone through two big games without committing a turnover had the ball
stripped with about two minutes remaining in the second quarter. Don't panic, even though he committed another turnover -- an interception -- with about three minutes remaining in the game.
Michael Robinson bounced right back on the next drive, using his favorite weapon -- his legs -- to run his team right back on top of the Wolverines.
Don't panic. Even after a measly freshman catches a 10-yard touchdown pass on fourth down with one second left on the clock.
ONE SECOND ... FOURTH DOWN ... national title hopes were at stake. Any time the Nittany Lions practiced their goal line packages in preseason practice, Paterno would always slap the ball down on the 1-yard line and bark out, "Fourth-and-1 for the national championship!" Five out of 10 times the defense might stop the offense. The other five times the offense might make the play.
When it mattered Saturday, though, the Lions defense didn't get it done.
"I don't know what else I could've said," Paterno said. "I'm proud of 'em, I'm disappointed for them, but I'm not going to hang around and feel sorry for them or they'll get licked again."
That's not just a good message for a team hanging its head in the locker room, it's a good message for a fan base looking for reasons why its team couldn't get the Michigan monkey off of its back.
Each of the last seven times Paterno has brought a Lions team before Lloyd Carr's Wolverines, he's walked away a loser every time.
I'm sure Carr doesn't mind that the last two times these teams have met it's been in front of his fans and his band -- his "Big House."
Still, there was no one, single, identifiable error that cost Penn State the football game. A couple turnovers, a couple of missed field goals, kicking off to the always-dangerous Wolverine kick returner Steve Breaston or even letting a freshman wideout from Ohio get open on a slant in the end zone -- these are all reasons for fans to wonder if the six wins so far were just some sort of honeymoon, a wedding present from the gods of non-conference scheduling.
But a good marriage is based on trust, and Penn State fans -- at least this season -- still remain in the best hands with Paterno driving the car.
Don't panic, though, if he makes a few wrong turns, and it takes him a long time to swallow his pride and stop at a gas station and ask for directions. He still knows where his players want to go.
After the game someone asked him where the team goes from here?
His response: "To Illinois."
Paterno will just have to bring a better map and more extensive directions next week if his team still wants to compete for a Bowl Championship Series bid.
