One more time for Paterno

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - The numbers have piled so high now, like the leaves that fall on the autumn hills surrounding the stadium, they have ceased to hold much meaning - and it is hard enough just to keep an accurate tally.

Joe Paterno began his 46th season as Penn State's head coach on Saturday with an easy opener against Indiana State, the 402d win of Paterno's career. Those are mind-boggling numbers, of course, but no more than the ones that have been stacked upon one another for the last decade or more.

They all say the same thing. He has coached a long time. He has won a lot of games. It was true when he was 70 years old, and when he was 75, and when he was 80. Paterno will be 85 in December, and the debate as to whether or not he is old was settled long ago.

The numbers that matter have nothing to do with the 1,077 lettermen during his tenure, the record 37 bowl games the Nittany Lions have played under him, or the 26 sets of fathers and sons he has coached. (And if you want to bet against his coaching a father-son-grandson combination, go ahead. I'll fade the old man on that one.)

The salient numbers have nothing to do with age and the lengthening statistical resumé that comes with it. What matters, as is the case every year, are the numbers from the games themselves. That challenge is the same for rookie coaches as it is for craggy legends.

Penn State, playing its 19th season in the deep waters of the Big Ten, would like to do more than just tread those waters in 2011, but the prospects are mixed at best. The team was 7-6 a year ago, absorbing a thumping loss in a middling bowl game to end the season. That Nittany Lions team was young, suffered some injuries, and didn't always seem well-coached.

If Paterno was ever going to step down - and, let's face it, that's getting unlikely - he certainly wasn't going to do if after a lukewarm season like that. So, on we go.

The new season began on Saturday with Paterno watching from the coaching box high above Beaver Stadium. He was steamrollered by a player during preseason practice last month and doesn't have the mobility to avoid another sideline confrontation. One of his goals this season is to get back on the sideline and resume his nearsighted pacing routine. He also said he wants to get more involved in the play-calling, a task that is already shared in an awkward two-step by offensive coordinator Galen Hall and quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno, Joe's son. That should be interesting.

What he saw on Saturday was a ritual 41-7 dismantling of a team from the Football Championship Subdivision, a season-opening lamb lured in by a $475,000 guarantee that will buy a lot of bus trips to South Dakota State for the Sycamores.

The Lions used the game as a live scrimmage to test out their schemes and to get a last look at quarterbacks Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin before the real season gets under way against No. 2 Alabama - one of the best defensive teams in the nation - next Saturday in Beaver Stadium.

Nothing regarding the quarterback landscape changed against Indiana State. Bolden is more talented. McGloin has more of the follow-me quarterback thing. Both had their moments last season. Bolden was the first true freshman starter at the position in 100 years (which even predates Joe), but lost his job to a concussion. McGloin finished up the year, even after Bolden was cleared to play, and closed it out with a five-interception day against Florida in the Outback Bowl.

Logic says the quarterback will eventually be Bolden, although Paterno said both would see time against Alabama. He isn't usually partial to wavering on the quarterback position, which either means that he has confidence in both, or that he really has confidence in neither. The offense has other decent weapons in wide receiver Derek Moye and tailback Silas Redd. Whether any of that will matter against Alabama, or against the meat of their Big Ten schedule - at Ohio State and at Wisconsin on successive late-November weekends looks particularly uninviting - is unknown. The optimistic are predicting a 9-3 season that builds toward a 2012 crescendo. The pessimistic see a decent defense, a spotty offense, and something closer to 7-5 in the regular season.

"We're still getting a feel for what kind of football team we have," said Paterno, who climbed the postgame dais with the aid of an arm-braced crutch on his left side. "I wouldn't go overboard after this game. We'll have to see."

Paterno has seen it all at least once before, and there must to be a value to the institutional knowledge and feel he still brings to the job. He is visibly frailer now, and the last sideline collision left him bent and almost shrunken.

It is a mistake to underestimate him, however, and the same goes for writing off football teams before a meaningful game has been played in September. The numbers might be against both the coach and the team, from an actuarial and a competitive standpoint, respectively, but Joe Paterno would say that some numbers mean something and some are just there for the counting. He should know.