Penn State's hopes smacked down

MADISON, Wis. - Had they won here on a wet, miserable afternoon made more so by the downpour of points with which the Wisconsin Badgers drenched their dream of a Big Ten championship game and possible trip to the Rose Bowl, Penn State's coaches and players at least would have been afforded another week of the false security of the blue line.

That would be the thick blue line that marks the boundaries of the football practice fields back in State College. From the moment they entered Joe Paterno's world in a place called Happy Valley, these Nittany Lions had been mentally conditioned to believe that all of their problems could be forgotten, at least for a few hours, once they crossed that blue line and into the safety of preparing for the next game. Having a next game kept them busy, focused and relatively serene.

But now that the Badgers had won the Leaders Division title and a berth in this Saturday's first Big Ten title contest against Legends Division winner Michigan State, all that was left for these Lions were the recriminations of a 45-7 beatdown and a week of solitary pondering of the might-have-beens and what-will-be's.

Oh, sure, there likely will be another game to be played and more times the cocoon of normalcy offered by that blue line will be entered. But bowl bids won't go out for another week, and the expected bowl appearance - it might not be as appealing an invitation as a 9-3 Penn State team wants and probably deserves - is more than a month away.

For this week, as Andy Reid might say, the time is theirs.

So how do you fill these next several days, interim coach Tom Bradley?

"I plan on talking to the team tomorrow, and then I'm going to go on the road and do some recruiting," Bradley said in the somber visitors' interview room in Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday.

"I'm going to give the guys a week off. We're pretty banged up. A week away from anything won't hurt us. I'm not going to make anything mandatory. They can come in and lift and work out on their own . . . maybe re-energize the batteries a little bit."

Someone mentioned how uncomfortable it must be for Bradley, who replaced the fired Paterno the night of Nov. 9, when the Jerry Sandusky scandal changed everything at Penn State, to leave on a recruiting trip when there was a strong possibility that the remainder of JoePa's holdover coaching staff could soon be unemployed.

"Most of them are going to go recruiting," Bradley, the Penn State lifer, said of his coaches' intentions in this latest in a recent series of strange and stranger weeks. "Some of them won't be. The rules say you can have only seven guys on the road. I told them if they want to go, great."

And the possibility that no bowl will want a Penn State team that is perceived by some to be tainted?

"We have a group of players that didn't do anything [wrong]," Bradley said. "They worked their tails off. Hey, they were 9-3. They've done everything we've asked them to do, and they've hung tough. I'm proud of them. I think they deserve the opportunity to play a bowl game."

Penn State, which entered with a No. 19 ranking from the Associated Press and fell to No. 23, didn't look much like a bowl team on a day when, with the exception of an early touchdown that gave the Lions a 7-0 lead and a glimmer of hope, costly mistakes were made with mind-numbing regularity.

How about the 89-yard run by senior tailback Stephfon Green that would have given the Lions a first-and-goal at the Wisconsin 5 but was erased by a chop-block penalty on tight end Kevin Haplea?

Or the four turnovers that led to 24 Wisconsin points? The seven penalties for 58 yards, most of which came at highly inconvenient moments?

And when Penn State didn't hurt itself, Wisconsin supplied additional pain in the form of two-headed monster Russell Wilson and Montee Ball, who turned out to be just as electrifying as advertised. Wilson, the transfer quarterback from North Carolina State, had two touchdown passes and now has 28 on the season, against only three interceptions. Ball rushed for 156 yards on 25 carries and scored four more touchdowns, boosting his best-in-the-nation total to 34.

"Wisconsin really brought it, on both sides of the ball," said senior left tackle Quinn Barham. "They should be commended. Wilson and Ball are really, really good."

But senior wide receiver Derek Moye, who was limited to three catches for 22 yards, wasn't inclined to give the Badgers that much credit.

"I think we made them look a lot better than they really are," Moye said, defiant to the end. "We thought we would win this game, the Big Ten championship game and go to the Rose Bowl. We had that much confidence in our ability. This scenario never crossed our minds."

The winner of the Wisconsin-Michigan State rematch - the Spartans won the regular-season meeting on Oct. 22, 37-31, on a last-play Hail Mary touchdown pass in East Lansing - is ticketed for Pasadena, Calif., and the Rose Bowl. The loser heads to Orlando, Fla., and the Capital One Bowl.

Figure 9-3 Nebraska for the Outback Bowl. Penn State presumably would get the next-most-attractive Big Ten slot, on Jan. 2 in the Gator Bowl against a Southeastern Conference opponent, but Gator officials, reportedly worried about any negative publicity that might arise from the Lions arriving with Sandusky baggage, could look to 7-5 Iowa or 6-6 Ohio State.

That could relegate Penn State to a lesser postseason destination, such as the Dec. 30 Insight Bowl in Tempe, Ariz., the Dec. 31 Meinke Car Care Bowl of Texas in Houston or the Jan. 2 TicketCity Bowl in Dallas.

Any preference among those possibilities?

"We want a bowl that actually wants us," said quarterback Matt McGloin.

Until a bowl committee rolls out the welcome mat and travel arrangements are set, this is the week of no football for the Lions. It will take some getting used to.

"Nap. Go to class. Give our bodies a rest," senior linebacker Nate Stupar said. "I just hope some bowl wants to have us. That would mean a lot. I haven't not gone to a bowl game since I've been here. It wouldn't seem right if we didn't go to another. We've earned it."

Penn State tailback Brandon Beachum broke the fibula in his left leg in the fourth quarter, according to reports. He is expected to miss the bowl game . . . The All-Big Ten team, as chosen by the coaches and the media, along with numerous individual honors will be revealed during the "All-Conference Selection Special" at 7:30 tonight on the Big Ten Network. Additional awards will be announced tomorrow and Wednesday.