EAST LANSING, Mich. -- The captain watched his successor plunge over the goal line for Penn State's final score of 2009 and stood on the sideline with both arms stoically raised over his head.
The message from Daryll Clark's statuesque pose was as clear as the path Andrew Quarless had to the end zone, back on Clark's first touchdown strike on a day the signal caller rewrote the school's record book:
"This is Penn State football, and we're damn good."
So good, in fact, that it will be playing in a New Year's Day bowl game for the second-straight season.
The Nittany Lions' 10-2 record is a clear indicator that they are a really good football team. The fact that Saturday's 42-14 drubbing of Michigan State clinched back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time since 1993-94 is a clear indicator of how out of touch people really are.
A national championship was never within grasp of this squad, and the only illusion that it was is a testament to just how poor its schedule really was.
Penn State still doesn't have much of an offensive line and remains atrocious on special teams, even if it finally figured out 12 games in that Stephfon Green could bring more speed to the kick return team than Jerome Hayes.
This team was no match for Iowa or Ohio State, evidenced by its failure to move the ball 90 percent of the time in double-digit losses to each and by how close the Hawkeyes and Buckeyes played each other a week ago.
The idea that Penn State "choked" or "wasn't up" for either game is fodder for cynics and fans who had national-title expectations back in fall camp.
"why are fans so impatient!!! it doesn't work out right away all the time," Clark posted on his Twitter account shortly after Saturday's game, before tweeting a minute later, "just be patient and have some freakin faith."
Be patient.
You support good players who won the games they were supposed to win, no matter what the lines in Vegas said about the two they lost.
Like Michigan State a year ago, Penn State finished 6-2 in the Big Ten by taking care of business against overmatched opponents and by showing it was just short of elite against big-time ones.
The idea of comparing any Lion team to any Spartan team sounds blasphemous to some until one looks at the numbers from the first half of this decade, which tell a different tale:
From 2000-04, Michigan State was 31-30. Penn State was 26-33.
Have some freakin' faith.
"I've been here for two years and I've been blessed with being around a great group of guys that know how to go out and get it," said Clark, who probably would have killed for just two winning seasons -- much less two 10-win seasons -- when he arrived at Penn State in 2005.
When it was all over Saturday, when the players had thanked the traveling fans and the fans had finished their "B-C-S" chant, Joe Paterno stepped to the podium for a press conference that could be mistaken for any one of his over the past five years.
"You know, I don't even know who makes up the BCS, who's involved in it or whatever," the 82-year-old said. "We're a good football team."
For once, we could all shake our head in agreement.
