From the time Penn State quarterback Anthony Morelli stepped onto the team bus, something was missing.

"It was just me up front in the first seat. Joe usually sits to the right of me, but he wasn't there today," Morelli said after the game. "It felt a little bit awkward. I am used to riding over with him next to me and him giving me advice for the game. I am usually with him getting ready for the game, but today it was quiet the whole way here."

Indeed, Saturday's game against Temple was strange without Paterno occupying his usual sideline position, as he watched the game from his home as he recovered from surgery.

All the way from the second the Nittany Lions ran onto the field behind co-captain Levi Brown and to the time the final player filtered out of the locker room hours after the Lions easily beat Temple, it wasn't Penn State football.

Penn State football is rolled up khakis, coke-bottle glasses and a man who doesn't mind a few sips of Jack Daniels on a Friday night. Penn State football is Joe Paterno.

"It wasn't right, him not being there," Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said quietly after the game.

How could it be? Paterno hadn't missed a game as a head coach since 1977 and had been on the sideline for every game at Beaver Stadium since 1949, a stretch of 319 home games.

In that time, Paterno has done more than just provide the starting quarterback advice, he's been the inspiration for countless players to come to Penn State, regardless if they start or not.

"It was real emotional. That's the first time, myself, being a part of the Penn State team, running out of the tunnel without Coach Paterno," said third-string linebacker Josh Hull, whose reasoning to attend Penn State included a chance to play for a man he called a legend. "It was real hard on some guys, but we just had to go out there and do what we needed to do."

Though not on the field, Paterno wasn't forgotten. In the final quarter, a chorus of "Joe Paterno" chants rang out loudly even from the sparsely filled stands. One sign hanging from the student section read "Roll up your pant leg for JoePa." Walking on the sidelines, Penn State president Graham Spanier obliged.

Another read "After 41 years, JoePa can still take a hit."

But the reality of the situation is after 41 years - and more importantly 79 years - Paterno cannot still take a hit. Earlier this season, a collision in practice left him with a broken rib, and this most recent collision left him unable to stand on his own power.

Paterno can walk six miles a day and be the most physically fit near-80-year-old in the nation, but that still doesn't affect the process of aging. Time slows everyone down. It makes everyone weaker.

Nobody is immune, no matter how many minutes of exercise they do a week, no matter how much anybody would like to believe they or a coaching icon like Paterno is.

As a colleague said this week, Paterno always said he'd stick around as long as he had his health. And as the same colleague pointed out, he no longer does. An injury like Paterno's is just as dangerous as a disease, especially considering all the potential complications. Blood clots, muscle atrophy, etc.

Never before has the retirement word applied more, and this weekend was a prelude to what Penn State football could look like in five years, three years or even after this season.

Someday, it won't be just one or two games Paterno will miss. Someday, it will be permanent. Someday, this generation of Lions, possibly the last to play under Paterno, will turn on their television sets and see somebody else coaching their alma mater.

Sophomore linebacker Sean Lee doesn't know how he'd react when that happens.

"We've been watching him forever," Lee said. "It'd be definitely weird. But whoever they find, they'll find another person like Joe. I'm sure they'll find the right person."

When that day finally does come for somebody else to take the reins, it'll be hard to ever look at Penn State football the same way.

"He set the legacy here. Penn State is always going to be about Joe Paterno," Hull said. "When the word Penn State football comes up, everybody's going to think Joe Paterno."

And people will think of him in different ways. As the man who's been a second father to many players, the man who once helped pay for the medical bills of a young reporter when he fell ill and the man who never gives up on a kid without a fair chance.

"He's not just a coach to us," backup quarterback Daryll Clark said.

He's much more than that. He's the most visible man on the Penn State campus, the name most affiliated with Penn State, even more so than Spanier or Atherton or even Beaver.

He is Penn State.