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Just as important, the driver — whether or not it's Joe Paterno — refuses to let his foot off the gas.
The Nittany Lions led Wisconsin 24-7 at halftime in Madison Saturday. And since they always defer the option when winning the pre-game coin toss, they'd be getting the ball first to start the second half.
The classic Paterno approach would have been, to extend the automotive metaphor, to gear down, hold the wheel real tight, and steer the thing quietly home.
Consider the singular win of the 2005 season, at home against Ohio State, when Joe shut the offense down utterly with a mere one-touchdown lead. The Lions won that one, barely, thanks to heroic defense.
Better, consider the Neanderthal approach at Michigan a year ago, when Paterno apparently took the Wolverines' season-opening losses to the spread offenses of Appalachian State and Oregon to mean that he could essentially abstain from offense. The result was a putrid 14-9 loss.
Contrast all that with a scene from the locker room in Madison Saturday.
"At halftime, the coaches told us this was going to be the most important drive of the season," quarterback Daryll Clark said after the game.
This would have been news to the Wisconsin faithful, who booed the Badgers off the field at halftime, but then returned to blithe, routine party mode.Clark added that, "Jay (Paterno) said … we were going to come out and throw the ball. I thought it was unique because of the type of trust our coaches have in our offense."
So the Lions went 76 yards in seven plays, five of which gained double-figure yardage. Clark completed four straight passes, and a fifth drew a pass-interference call that set up the TD. Clark then ran it in from four yards out.
The game was now a rout, and even Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema knew it.
"We really saw the momentum swing at that point," he said, "and it was never really going to come back."
But even that didn't mean Penn State was finished. The Lions scored again on their next possession, on an 82-yard march that included passes of 21, 25 and, for the TD, 44 yards, Clark to Deon Butler.
Clark finished with 175 passing yards in the third quarter, and 244 yards in 25 throws, just a hair under the gold standard of 10 yards per pass.
Now that's stomping the gas pedal to the floor. And it's a change in attitude and approach, whether JoePa wants to admit it or not.
"I've been in some ball games where it turned around so fast, it'd make your head spin," he said. "I thought … we needed to get on the board a couple times. I maybe played the first string a little longer than I should have, and (could have) given the younger kids a chance, but one big play here, one big play there, and it gets to be a dogfight."
(938) (747) (199) (66) (53) (11)But in the past Joe's way was to hunker down and try to stop the big play from happening, rather then trying to make more of them than the other guys.
He did not concur, of course.
"Aww, you don't know what conservative is," he scoffed.
OK. Whatever.
What matters is the Lions are 7-0 and, with the No. 1, 3 and 4 teams in the country losing Saturday, now ranked third in the country in both major polls.
They even got three first-place votes in the USA Today coaches' poll.
The Lions aced a big test. They face a much bigger one at Ohio State in two weeks. In between, on Saturday (4:30 p.m., Beaver Stadium, ESPN) is a struggling 2-4 team the Lions will be prohibitive favorites against, an apparent breather.
Except that the 2-4 team is Michigan, with which you could say Penn State has some history. Michigan has beaten the Lions nine straight times.
Can Penn State have a sandwich game with Wolverine meat?
Uh, no.
E-mail: mgross@lnpnews.com
