While it provided little consolation to Northwestern head coach Randy Walker, who had trouble finding postgame words for his players after Saturday’s loss to Penn State, he at least witnessed the season’s feel-good moment of college football history.

“As difficult as this night is for me and our football program, it’s a tremendous achievement by Coach Paterno,” Walker said, referring to Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno’s 323rd career victory, a milestone that ties him with Paul “Bear” Bryant as the winningest coach in Division I-A college football history. “It was a very difficult game for me to watch.”

Just five minutes earlier, Paterno had sat in the same chair as Walker, chirping in a quiet rasp about the 38-35 victory many thought might never come after the Nittany Lions stumbled to the 0-4 start in school history.

“This is one of the really good ones that I’ve been around, and one of the most important ones,” Paterno said.

He tied the record in front of 42,512 fans, many of whom dressed in blue and white to follow the Nittany Lions to Evanston.

Paterno had just watched his Nittany Lions (1-4, 1-3 Big Ten) mount a better offensive attack in the last four hours than they had in their previous four games combined.

After totaling only 163 yards on the ground heading into Ryan Field, Penn State more than doubled its season total by amassing 213 yards on Saturday. The Nittany Lions offense that had scored 31 points in four games collected its first rushing touchdown of the season in the second quarter. Penn State went on to rush for two more scores in the game.

NU’s defensive collapse left Walker speechless, both in the locker room and when he had to answer the media’s queries as to how the preseason Big Ten favorite could lose to the conference’s bottom-feeder.

“I can’t explain it, and there are not very many times I’m speechless or have few words,” Walker said. “There was no magic, there was no miracle, there was no last-second heroics. Hopefully that’s a good part of the learning process because I think sometimes there’s almost a subconscious that says, ‘Well, we’ll make a play at the end.'”

In the last 22 seconds of the game, NU’s sideline transformed from a mass of jittery spectators to the straight line of hand-in-hand praying players that has framed multiple miracle wins in the last two seasons.

But NU (4-2, 2-2) couldn’t pull out another “Instant Classic.” And the Cats left the field on the losing end of a close game for the first time since Walker came to NU three years ago.

With three-and-a-half minutes left in the fourth quarter, Penn State took its first lead of the game – and its first this season – on a 24-yard Robbie Gould field goal that made the score 31-28. The Cats promptly snatched back the lead on their next possession. Quarterback Zak Kustok ran the option 39 yards to the Penn State 1-yard line and then took it in on a sneak one play later.

The drive left the Nittany Lions with just under two minutes to move the ball the length of the field.

But Penn State capitalized, covering 69 yards on 13 plays to make the score 38-35. The Nittany Lions completed the run without starting quarterback Matt Senneca, who left the game with his head spinning. NU defensive end Napoleon Harris nailed Senneca into the ground just as the quarterback released a pass that fell incomplete. Senneca lay in a heap for the next five minutes before medical staff assisted him to the sideline.

But what appeared to be a turning point for the Cats backfired when redshirt freshman quarterback Zack Mills completed 5 of 8 passes for 54 yards to lead the Nittany Lions into the end zone.

“We were excited to go out and play because that’s what you live for on defense,” NU linebacker Billy Silva said. “It was the defense’s turn to go out and do our thing, and we just didn’t do it.”

Penn State’s last touchdown left the Cats with 22 seconds to move within field goal range and send the game into overtime. The television broadcast showed the face of NU kicker David Wasielewski, whose 47-yard field goal gave the Cats a last-second win over Michigan State three weeks earlier.

But NU only got as far as the Penn State 38-yard line before the clock expired. The game ended with a 2-yard pass from Kustok to wide receiver Kunle Patrick. The completion was, in Walker’s words, “the worst thing that could’ve happened,” since Patrick couldn’t reach the sideline to stop the clock for another play.

After the game, Kustok said he felt the offense would not be affected by failing to pull out another miracle.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t come out on top in the ballgame,” he said. “But there’s no way that this will deflate our confidence at all.”

But NU’s defense is in greater danger of not recovering from Saturday’s performance. Throughout the game, the defenders allowed Penn State to respond to every NU touchdown, and the Cats’ offense never built more than a one-touchdown lead.

Walker seemed most discouraged after the game by all the missed tackles and gaping holes. And he said he cannot shake up the defensive lineup after Saturday’s loss because the team doesn’t have enough depth or experience.

“It comes to a point where you don’t have anywhere to go,” he said.

At least one person left Ryan Field on Saturday in a celebratory mood.

Said Paterno: “I’m going to go home and probably get in trouble with a good stiff bourbon.”