It wasn't the time for that, though no one jokes about Joe Paterno being old more than Joe Paterno. Other people bring it up, mostly those news guys trying to get a story, but it's only worth a joke now and then to the coach. Really, he says, deflecting the talk and the attention, it's about the kids who play the game, not some guy sitting in the press box, about to get hip surgery, making notes to himself, just mostly watching.

A lot of this is about Paterno, though. It has to be. Penn State went through Michigan State easily yesterday, winning, 49-18, to finish the regular season 11-1, win the Big Ten championship, and earn a berth in the Rose Bowl (assuming some miracle doesn't catapult them into the BCS title game).

On another coach's resume, that might be a signature year. On Paterno's, it is just another season that piles up in the mathematical snowstorm of his career. Yesterday's win was the 800th in the history of the program. Paterno has been on the staff for 487 of those wins, including 383 as the head coach, which is the record for major college coaches. The Rose Bowl will mark Penn State's 35th bowl appearance in his 43 years of coaching.

It's a long time, a lot of games, but the latest stretch might have been the most satisfying for Paterno. He was nearly marginalized within college football just four years ago as Penn State piled up mediocre seasons and the coach became viewed as a cantankerous relic who didn't know when to leave the stage. Players got into trouble with the police with unsettling regularity, and the great edifice he had built appeared to be crumbling around the edges.

Since then, the Nittany Lions have gone 40-10, won three bowl games, finished No. 3 in one of those seasons, are in the top 10 again, and now get the Rose Bowl. If not for a bad one-point loss at Iowa two weeks ago, the team had a decent shot at the national championship.

That's not bad for a guy who will turn 82 before the next game. It is a remarkable comeback, even if part of it has been accomplished while watching from the press box and not being as involved at a physical level as he would like to be. Is it vindication for all those things that were said about him and the program?

"Vindication is a word that suggests animosity to me," Paterno said. "I don't have any of that. Really, I don't."

He messed up his leg trying to show the special teams how an onside kick is properly executed, one thing led to another, and now he will have hip surgery this week, though he won't say which day.

"Ah, there would be 50 guys waiting for me to come in and it would be a three-ring circus, and I don't need that," Paterno said.

Being laid up - having to get around with a cane and not being able to do much more than just watch practices and talk with his assistants on the phone - that's been the toughest part. He missed being able to grab them by the shoulder pads when they did something wrong or kick them in the tail - literally - when he needed to get their attention. He could see things a field away and somehow be on top of the kid before the next snap. Not now, though, and maybe not again.

Paterno says he'll be back next season. He whomped up the crowd at the Friday night pep rally when he said he would be leading the team out of the tunnel, running in front of the pack, when the 2009 season opens at Beaver Stadium.

He doesn't have a contract at the moment for next season, but that's a detail to be worked out among Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley, and school president Graham Spanier. Paterno doesn't seem too worried about it, and if the higher administrators have other ideas, a trip to the Rose Bowl might persuade them to keep it to themselves.

Paterno will be the one who decides when the program is better off without him, and don't hold your breath. He has no real hobbies, nothing outside his job to occupy him. He was shaken when Bear Bryant, a close friend, died after retiring in 1982, passing away just 28 days after coaching his final game. Paterno thought the two events were related, and retirement holds no allure for him.

"I'm planning on coming back. I've never planned otherwise," he said.

This wasn't the original plan, though, even as well as it has worked. He was supposed to work as an assistant for a couple of years to pay off his college debt from Brown. Then it was on to law school, his father's dream for him.

"I called my father and said, 'Pop, I've decided to coach,' " Paterno said, and he got the response he expected. "I told him I thought I might be pretty good at it and I liked the town and like the people.

"He said, 'Well, for God's sake, try to have an impact on people and not just teach a bunch of guys to knock each other's brains out.' So, I look back and think I've had a little bit of an impact on the place, and I feel good about that."

Then Joe Paterno grabbed his cane, stood up and left the room to celebrate his 383d win. Someone else carried the roses.