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Wednesday, September 04, 2002

By Ray Fittipaldo, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

If Penn State Coach Joe Paterno had his way, the Nittany Lions would be playing the University of Virginia Saturday at Beaver Stadium.

It would have been an ideal situation for his team. The Lions' young and inexperienced players would have had another non-conference game against a solid opponent before facing No. 9 Nebraska Sept. 14.

But the Lions must deal with an off week because they acquiesced to a request from Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage.

Virginia accidentally scheduled two games for Saturday. On the same day the Cavaliers were supposed to play Penn State in University Park, a home game was scheduled against South Carolina. Paterno and Penn State eventually gave into Littlepage's request and, in the off-season, rescheduled the game for Nov. 9.

"It was not our doing," Paterno said. "I would have preferred to play Virginia this Saturday. My first reaction was no. We went through this last year when we postponed the Virginia game because of the tragedy in New York City. It took us a long time to recover from that because we had to play a Wisconsin team that had three games under its belt while we had played just one. Now we are going through the same thing. We are going to play a Nebraska team a week from Saturday, a team which will have had three games while we have one.

"I was not for it, but supposedly there was no way they could get out of the contract [with South Carolina] or whatever the reasons were. It was worked out between the athletic directors and I certainly said, 'OK, we'll postpone it.' But I was not happy about it."

High on Haynes

Senior defensive end Michael Haynes had the best game of his career against Central Florida, Paterno said. Haynes, a 6-foot-3, 280-pounder from Columbus, N.J., had five tackles, two quarterback sacks and pressured Golden Knights quarterback Ryan Schneider several other times.

It was the kind of production the coaching staff expected to get out of Haynes the past couple of seasons.

"That was the best Mike has played for us," Paterno said. "When things had to be done, he did them Saturday. He played an extremely strong game. I was really encouraged by what he did Saturday against Central Florida."

'Lousy execution'

Paterno said Penn State's inability to stop Central Florida on third downs was the result of "lousy execution by a couple of guys who fell asleep."

Central Florida was 11 for 19 on third downs, including successful conversions on a third-and-19 and a third-and-22. Because of it, Penn State was limited to just four possessions in the first half.

"They made two plays that should never happen," Paterno said. "It just shouldn't happen. I wish I could tell you why it happened. A couple of kids just fell asleep or lost their concentration. Maybe they thought nothing bad could happen on third-and-20, I don't know. We had trouble last year on third downs and we had trouble again on Saturday. If we're going to get to be pretty good, we have to eliminate those things."

'Special' teams

Penn State will be working more on its special teams this week and next in preparation for Nebraska. The Cornhuskers blocked a punt for a touchdown against Arizona State, and DeJuan Groce returned two punts for touchdowns last week against Troy State.

"We'd better," Paterno said. "Their return guy is great, their people are very quick and active, and they have an excellent scheme. If we can't do a good job, the kicking game will beat us. I don't think we can win the kicking game, but, hopefully, we can stay close in it. They really do have a great block and return game."

Quick hits

Paterno said his players came out of the game injury-free. ... The tendinitis in Zack Mills throwing arm is not considered serious. Paterno said he would not limit Mills' throwing this week. "He's kind of his own boss out there. We kind of leave it up to him. He can handle a little pain. Obviously, we don't want to get it to a point where it's affecting him next Saturday."