ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Little more than a quarter-century ago, Herb Brooks delivered one of the all-time great sports motivational speeches. With his 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team trailing Finland, 2-1, after two periods of the gold-medal game and threatening to waste their marvelous upset of the mighty Russians two days earlier, he was rather blunt in his quiet locker room. "If you lose this game, you'll take it your grave," he told the players. "Your bleepin' grave."

You know how that story had a happy ending.

Maybe Penn State coach Joe Paterno should have tried the same talk yesterday.

His Nittany Lions surely will take their 27-25 loss to Michigan to their grave.

There's no shame in losing to Michigan at The Big House, even an unranked Michigan team that stumbled in with a 3-3 record. There is only incredible hurt. This loss stung more than any Penn State loss in a long, long time because of what it cost the Nittany Lions. With winnable games ahead against Illinois, Purdue and Wisconsin, they were looking at the real possibility of taking a 10-0 record to Michigan State Nov. 19 and playing perhaps for a spot in the national championship game.

All of that is gone now.

It came crashing down when the great Penn State defense couldn't make a stop on a fourth-down play at the 10 with 0:01 left.

And here's the killer:

Penn State was the better team.

It didn't play well enough to win and didn't deserve to win, but it was the better team.

Those losses cause indescribable pain.

"I'm disappointed for the kids," said Paterno, who also lost much. He wanted, more than anything, to coach one final, truly great team. He'll have to come back at least one more season if he's going to do it.

"All I am right now is 'P-Oed,' " Paterno said, explaining his mood.

Paterno clearly was angry the officials -- without explanation, he said -- put two seconds back on the clock after Michigan called a timeout on its winning drive with 0:28 left. Those seconds, obviously, were huge at the end.

But that's not what beat Penn State.

The special teams beat Penn State. Michigan's Steve Breaston had a 39-yard kickoff return after the Nittany Lions had scored to take an 18-10 lead early in the fourth quarter, then had a 41-yard return after Penn State took a 25-21 lead with 0:53 left. No one who watched Breaston at Woodland Hills High School, where he might have been the most exciting player in WPIAL history, was surprised. Nor was Paterno, who admitted he long will second-guess himself for not kicking away from Breaston.

The defense also beat Penn State. It could have won the game after the Nittany Lions took that 18-10 lead, but it allowed Michigan to score the tying touchdown in little more than two minutes. Henne's 33-yard touchdown pass to Manningham was the big play. Don't be too hard on the player who was beaten on that play, though. Justin King is a freshman who also is asked to play wide receiver.

The Penn State defense was worse in the final minute, allowing Michigan to drive 53 yards in eight plays for the winning score. Senior All-American cornerback candidate Alan Zemaitis was beaten by Manningham on a slant that produced the touchdown. Unlike King, he had no excuse.

There were missed tackles all over the field by the Penn State defense during the game, something that hardly happened as the Nittany Lions raced to their 6-0 record.

But those mistakes hardly were the only ones out of character for the Penn State team.

Kicker Kevin Kelly, who had made nine of his 11 field goals, missed from 32 and 45 yards in the first half. Punt returner Calvin Lowry failed to catch a punt and allowed it to roll dead at the Penn State 5 in a game when field possession was critical. Quarterback Michael Robinson lost a fumble in the second quarter and threw an interception in the fourth after playing flawlessly in the Nittany Lions' convincing wins against Ohio State and Minnesota. Linebacker Tyrell Sales was late getting on the field on a 2-yard touchdown run by Michigan's Mike Hart early in the third quarter, effectively meaning Penn State tried to stop the play with 10 men. Guard Charles Rush took a false-start penalty on a second-and-1 play midway through the fourth quarter, a mental mistake that led to a punt.

Penn State really didn't deserve to win.

Somehow, though, it's hard to imagine that making Paterno and his players feel any better.