Based on the first month of the 2000 college football season, Louisiana Tech must not be a very good team.
The Bulldogs were destroyed 67-7 by Penn State on Sept. 9 in Happy Valley. Normally, that wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary — Penn State is accustomed to rolling over most of its opponents.
But this year has been different.
The Nittany Lions have gotten off to an ugly 1-3 start, their worst since 1983. Aside from the Louisiana Tech blowout — in which the Lions scored 27 first-quarter points — Penn State has put up an anemic 11 points in three games.
“It’s not easy,” head coach Joe Paterno said. “It’s just a question of hanging in there and trying to point out the things that they can do to maybe make a play here and make a play there. Sometimes your luck runs bad for a long time. But it all evens up and it all evens out. We’ll just keep hustling and something good will happen.”
The 2000 season was supposed to be one of glory for Paterno and his team. The coaching legend began the year only seven wins away from breaking Paul “Bear” Bryant’s record of 323 Division I-A wins.
Things began to sour for the Lions before the season even began when starting quarterback Rashard Casey was accused of assaulting a police officer in his home town of Hoboken, N.J.
The troubles for Paterno worsened this past weekend when his team got blanked 12-0 by lowly Pittsburgh.
“We have people who want to play well. We have people who believe in themselves. They just need some good luck,” Paterno said. “I think our defensive people have done a good job. They’ve been solid, they’ve been under an awful lot of pressure because the offense obviously has not been able to do much with the football.”
Limping away from losses against USC, Pittsburgh and Toledo doesn’t give the Lions much confidence entering the Big Ten schedule. And starting out with No. 14 Ohio State (3-0) doesn’t help.
“We might not be good enough to make it a competitive game,” Paterno said. “As far as this game, I don’t know, we’re going to have to play much, much better just to make it a good football game for everybody.”
LITTLE BIG TEN: Penn State hasn’t been the only Big Ten team struggling so far.
For a conference accustomed to beating up non-conference opponents, this year has been strangely lacking good showings.
Last week alone, all of the ranked teams in the Big Ten either lost or barely escaped the weekend unscathed. Then-No. 3 Michigan lost to then-No. 17 UCLA and No. 7 Wisconsin won a 28-25 overtime thriller over Cincinnati.
No. 12 Purdue lost to Notre Dame and No. 14 Ohio State struggled before beating Miami of Ohio 27-16. Finally, No. 17 Illinois got a scare when California battled them to the last minute in 17-15 thriller. All the close calls have Big Ten coaches shaking their heads and admitting that the days of dominance may be a thing of the past.
“There’s a lot more parity in college football than there’s ever been whether you’re going cross-conference or within the conference,” Northwestern coach Randy Walker said.
HAWKEYES TAKE A DIVE: The Kirk Ferentz era has been anything but rosy. The Iowa faithful are beginning to get disgruntled, especailly after an 0-3 start. Last year’s 1-10 finish doesn’t help much, either.
“We’ve got to play smarter as a football team if we want to win,” Ferentz said.
To compound the problem, Iowa travels to Lincoln, Neb., to face the top-ranked Cornhuskers this weekend.
“They’re an outstanding football team, no question about it,” Ferentz said. “Nebraska always has great skill players and this (year) is certainly no exception.
“If you’re not frustrated when you’re losing, there’s something wrong.”
