Perspective Piece: Penn State-Ohio State

Saturday night in Columbus, the Big Ten title will be decided, but Penn State and Ohio State will take to the field knowing that they’ve already won enormous victories in 2008. When two coaches meet before kickoff in the Horseshoe, they’ll be able to enjoy a mutually-shared laugh and savor the ways in which they’ve silenced their critics.

Joseph Vincent Paterno has represented Penn State University with honor, integrity, and on-field excellence for 59 years. Now in his forty-third season as the Nittany Lions’ head coach, Paterno has passed Amos Alonzo Stagg—one of the great early figures in college football’s storied history—as the leader in longevity at a single school. (Stagg coached at the University of Chicago for 41 seasons, from 1892 until his forced retirement in 1932.) Still coaching at an age when most men have long since retired, Paterno has fielded teams that--while not contending on an annual basis they way they once did--make a big splash every few seasons. In 2005, Paterno won the Big Ten title before claiming an Orange Bowl victory at age 79. Surely, another tremendous accomplishment should have given JoePa the right to call his own exit from the grand stage of the gridiron.

However, in this day of “what have you done for me lately,” two so-so seasons in 2006 and 2007 brought a sense of fatigue back to the Nittany Nation. Not a single soul should have felt the need to demand the end of Paterno’s tenure, but that’s exactly what has happened on multiple occasions over the past few years. The constant chatter belonging to the Internet age has hounded the hallowed head coach into his eighties. The era of short attention spans and nonexistent patience did not allow Paterno to escape the ravaging effects of its misguided moods and infantile intentions.

Despite the cacophony of criticisms and complaints, the ever-persistent Paterno has managed to push back Father Time, not to mention the vultures and vipers who’ve been after his hide. Once again, JoePa has calmly coaxed quality from another Penn State squad. In a manner eerily similar to 2005, the pieces of a formidable offense have seamlessly blended together after the puzzlement of previous seasons. Darryl Clark has become the new Michael Robinson at quarterback, while Evan Royster has emerged as a running back in a manner similar to Tony Hunt. Alongside the fresh faces of Clark and Royster, a steady trio of senior receivers that contributed mightily to the 2005 team has stuck around to engineer a 2008 turnaround. Derrick Williams, Jordan Norwood, and Deon Butler have offered dependable targets for Clark, in his first full season under center in Happy Valley, while giving the Nittany Lions the passing prowess that has enabled Royster’s running attack to become that much more effective.

With faces both new and old, the Nittany Lions—always solid on defense in seasons good and bad—have regained the formula for offensive firepower. Penn State’s point-producing potency has enabled its old-school leader to remain a bearer of wisdom, not a man past his prime. That’s the difference between an elder, and someone who is elderly. Paterno—in this year of rediscovered offensive excellence at Penn State—has made sure that the “-LY” ending will not soon be added to “E-L-D-E-R.” This latest renewal of fortune, just two months shy of his 82nd birthday, has Paterno poised to paint the latest and greatest portrait of a masterful coaching career. With a win against the Buckeyes, Paterno will unofficially claim a conference crown that will be formally sewn up in the following weeks. If his Lions can prevail in prime time, JoePa will head to a BCS bowl, and find himself three wins away from a likely date in the BCS Championship Game. Not bad for a man who’s been viewed as a washed-up has-been far too many times this decade.

As much as Paterno has been pounded and pounced on, the leader of the Lions will have company Saturday night. The coach who will oppose him, and the team standing in the way of his latest shot at gridiron glory, knows a fair bit about being prematurely and appallingly attacked and assaulted.

Jim Tressel and the Ohio State Buckeyes have wrongly become America’s newest victim of Second Place Syndrome, that nasty national habit in this country of ripping into runners-up. Much like the Buffalo Bills and Atlanta Braves—and, within college football, the 2003 and ’04 Oklahoma Sooners—Ohio State football has turned into a cultural punching bag, a team hated not for winning too much, but for losing too many championship contests. Whereas the New York Yankees and New England Patriots have been hated in the past for winning everything in sight, the Buckeyes—like their brethren in Buffalo, Atlanta, and Oklahoma—have been vilified for being good enough to get to big games, but unable to claim the ultimate crown.

Forget the fact that being a runner-up for two straight seasons is an unreal accomplishment in the cutthroat climate of college football. Forget the fact that the Buckeyes have won the last two Big Ten titles, and have reached a BCS bowl in five of the past six seasons, another incredible football feat. Forget the fact that the Buckeyes, unlike many FBS schools, have had the guts to schedule home-and-home series with the likes of Texas and now USC, risking everything while other schools hide behind cushy cupcakes and cream puffs. Yes, the Big Ten hasn’t been America’s best conference in recent years, but the consistent quality of the Tressel era has been something to behold in Columbus. The Buckeyes have displayed levels of daring and determination that have kept them atop the sport despite receiving every opponent’s best shot on a weekly basis, year after year. Ohio State’s awesome track record has merited the heartiest of hosannahs, the fullest forms of pigskin praise.

Yet, the aftermath of almost every OSU game in this trying 2008 trail of tension has been met with an avalanche of criticism. The Buckeyes received the verbal equivalent of a barrage of rotten tomatoes after their lopsided loss at USC in September. Tressel’s big-game chops and coaching quality weren’t just questioned, but assaulted with outraged acidity and off-the-charts anger. A flood of columns and commentaries poured in from all corners of the country, cutting a proud pack of proven performers to pieces. The depth of the venom and vitriol heaped on the Bucks was overwhelming. The degree to which pundits and talking heads drowned the Big Ten’s best team with derision, and even a diabolical dose of disturbing delight, proved to be breathtaking in its boldness and scope. The program that, in this decade, has maximized its potential more than any other school not named USC, confronted the cruelest critique of all: namely, that it had consistently underachieved.

Before last Saturday’s slaughter of the Michigan State Spartans, Ohio State had been winning without flair, in the Jim Tressel way. Surviving sluggish Saturdays against the likes of Ohio, Troy, Wisconsin, and Purdue, these Buckeyes have recalled the 2002 title team that mastered the elusive art of winning without its best fastball. Prevailing even when inefficient, and conquering the crucible of the four-quarter fistfight that remains close to the very end, the 2002 Buckeyes bucked the odds by pulling every pulse-pounding, dead-heat duel out of the fire in the final minutes. Without exception, the crew captained by crunch-time king Craig Krenzel always excelled in the midst of the man-making motivational moment that magnifies the winner and diminishes the loser. Aside of this year’s terrible tumble in Los Angeles, the 2008 Buckeyes are showing signs of replicating the resourcefulness of the last national title team in Columbus.

The important thing to remember, though, about this latest Ohio State outfit—much like Joe Paterno himself—is that, win or lose on Saturday in the ‘Shoe, a validating and vindicating victory has already been attained. Similar to the way in which Paterno was pelted and pummeled with plentiful putdowns at a time when he deserved to ride into the sunset on his own terms, Jim Tressel and his team had to walk in the valley of the vanquished, against their own wishes. Viewed as a loser despite a consistent track record of winning at the highest level, the Buckeyes—painted falsely and unfairly by outside observers—have already claimed a conquest of their critics by arranging this meeting of maximum magnitude on Saturday night. It’s remarkable that this Buckeye bunch—written off after the USC loss with glee and gusto by countless drive-by assailants—is merely in position to claim a third consecutive outright Big Ten title, a feat that has never been accomplished in the 139-year history of college football.

That’s not too shabby for the team and coach who have been dumped on and derided by dozens of detractors at the end of the past two seasons, and in the first half of this 2008 campaign.

Penn State and Ohio State. JoePa and Mister Sweater Vest. Two teams and two coaches will compete with the comfort of realizing that by setting up this battle for Big Ten bragging rights and BCS bling, they’ve already achieved far more than their fiercest foes ever expected. One more triumph will propel the winner to even loftier heights, but the loser of this game will still be in the running for an at-large invite to a January extravaganza.

Whether it’s Paterno marching to one more national title tilt, or the Buckeyes racking up an historic accomplishment, a special storyline will emerge from this crowning collision in Columbus. When the postgame handshakes take place, however, the gridiron gladiators at these two successful schools will know that they’ve both overcome ample amounts of adversity. A highly significant football game is waiting to be won this Saturday night, but the delicious subtext of Lions-Buckeyes, the battle of the best in the Big Ten, is found in the fact that these two terrific teams and their supremely successful sideline sages, are all—to a man and without exception—champions of the highest order.