EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Almost 500 miles northwest of State College, near a two-home trailer park that posed as Michigan State's postgame press conference facility, Joe Paterno gingerly helped himself down a flight of stairs.

The Penn State coach appeared exhausted and weary, as if he himself had played four quarters of football at the precious age of 78.

Next month, he will turn 79, and these days, his physical ailments are no longer disguised. His sneezing was constant and he blew his nose often, and perhaps those are the reasons his team elected not to cover him with a Gatorade shower to commemorate its first Big Ten title in 11 years and first-ever Bowl Championship Series bowl berth.

"I wasn't gonna do it," Nittany Lions center E.Z. Smith said. "I've already been in enough trouble with Joe. I sure wasn't gonna throw any water on him."

What transpired on the field Saturday evening hardly tells the real story of this Lions team (10-1, 9-1 Big Ten).

The scorecard from Nov. 19, 2005, will forever read 31-22, Lions beat Spartans. But the stat sheet won't detail how grueling the climb back up to the top was for a maligned football program far past embarrassment. It won't tell how Paterno dealt privately with the fact that his players and coaches received offers to provide their services for other programs as the Penn State football program sadly declined.

Paterno compared his team's struggles of recent memory to a never-ending boxing match.

The last few years saw Penn State take blow after blow from its opponents, media and doubters combined. The Lions had been backed up against the ropes of disaster; a few times they were knocked down, and a few times, staying there might have seemed like the easiest solution.

To their credit, the Lions indeed got up again. The rise began more than a year ago, in the unlikely site of Bloomington, Ind., where a backed-up defense refused to permit entry past its goal line to a feisty Indiana offense that smelled blood.

When that scare was survived, the Lions returned home and beat this same Spartans team, prohibiting it from reaching a bowl game, and ironically doing the same thing this year, too.

"If you were a player on this team, you would understand that we went through hell," senior cornerback Alan Zemaitis said. "When we're losing, people point fingers at us saying we brought Penn State down. And these are the same players bringing Penn State back."

It appeared as if the Lions were in complete control of Saturday's game when they took a 17-0 lead into the locker room at halftime. The Lions offense started slow in the first quarter as drives were stalled because of dropped or overthrown passes and a running game not quite ready to take off. There was no telling whether the two-week layoff caused the celebration to be delayed somewhat.

"We didn't play our best game today," Smith said. "But we did enough."

The first boost came on a special teams play, when junior Donnie Johnson blocked a punt, coming through the Spartans line of scrimmage untouched, followed by Matt Hahn, who pounced on the loose ball in the end zone for a touchdown.

It only took the Lions two plays on their following possession to score their first offensive touchdown. The coaching staff put the ball in the hands of arguably the two most reliable players of the season: quarterback Michael Robinson and running back Tony Hunt.

Robinson hit Hunt on a 22-yard screenplay. Then, as Penn State went to a surprising no-huddle offense, Robinson dropped back in the pocket for a second, then took off on a 33-yard scoring run.

But for the loyalists in attendance and those watching from afar, these are just footnotes of a larger text.

When they look back, few people will remember who scored what and how it occurred.

But they might remember Chris Harrell climbing into the front row of the visitor's section, embraced by Penn State fans while holding a sign that read "Big Ten Champs."

There's a good chance they'll recall Lions defensive coordinator Tom Bradley offering chest bumps to Anwar Phillips and Zemaitis, or Terrell Golden in disbelief on one knee or the emotional hug between best friends Robinson and defensive end Matthew Rice following the game.

It is certainly worth asking whether all the adversity the team suffered make these times that much more appreciated.

"It would be a great feeling no matter what," Smith said. "But coming through what we've come through ... we should have been 11-0, but coming out 10-1 and having the type of season we did after the past couple we've had, it's the greatest feeling in the world."

In the end, Paterno put all the praise back onto his team. And in return, the team was quick to remind the college football nation that Paterno never lost a step throughout the process of restoration.

"I've been waiting for this point," Rice said. "I couldn't have a better situation to look back on."