ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) The disappointment was evident on the faces of the Penn State players after their 13-9 loss to Auburn in the Capital One Bowl. It wasn’t the way this season was supposed to end.
“I said, ‘I just hope you guys understand what you did-coming through a period where a lot of people doubted that we’d ever be a competitive football program again,’” coach Joe Paterno said. “I just hope they don’t let this last one distort some of the great things they did, some of the good things that happened to us.”
Despite the final loss, which probably will deny Penn State its first Top 10 finish since 1996, the Nittany Lions this year came back from perhaps the lowest point in the program’s history-ending a two-year string of losing seasons and putting Penn State back among the nation’s elite.
And despite starting the year with an aerial attack and a basket of trick plays, by season’s end the Nittany Lions were winning with their traditional football-a hard-running offense and a stingy defense.
“We were able to turn the program around the past two seasons,” defensive end Michael Haynes said. “We’ve been pretty much lousy, and the way I see it we were able to turn the program around and get us back to a major bowl.”
Haynes was a big part of that. The second-team All-American, joined on the defensive line by third-teamer Jimmy Kennedy and Anthony Adams, wreaked havoc on opposing offenses, pressuring quarterbacks and stuffing the run.
Haynes led the Big Ten with 14 1/2 sacks, 22 tackles for loss and seven forced fumbles. In the backfield, safety Shawn Mayer’s 139 tackles rank third on the school’s single-season list.
But the 2002 team won’t be remembered for its defense. It will be remembered as the year Larry Johnson emerged from obscurity to become perhaps the best in Penn State’s long line of great tailbacks.
Johnson rushed for 123 yards and two touchdowns against then-No. 8 Nebraska -his first 100-yard game-then followed that up with 147 yards against Louisiana Tech. At the time, he was mostly running to keep defenses honest while quarterback Zack Mills orchestrated a record-breaking passing attack.
But soon, it was Johnson breaking records, and not just for rushing. His 341 receiving yards this year were the most ever by a Penn State running back.
Johnson had his coming-out party against Northwestern, setting a school record with 257 rushing yards. He had the power to bowl over defenders, the speed to run away from them, and-what he had lacked in previous years-the patience to wait for a hole.
It wasn’t long before Johnson became the center of the offense.
“When the head coach comes down and he puts his hands on your shoulders and says, ‘Frannie, they can’t tackle him-run the ball,’ that’s what we did,” offensive coordinator Fran Ganter said. “That’s really what it amounted to. We got to a point where … they couldn’t tackle him.”
Two weeks after the Northwestern game, Johnson broke his own school single-game rushing record with 279 yards against Illinois, then did it again two weeks after that with 327 yards at Indiana, giving Johnson the Penn State single-season rushing record.
With 279 yards against Michigan State-all in the first half-Johnson put his name in the top four spots of the school’s single-game rushing chart and became the first player in Penn State history and just the ninth in NCAA Division I-A to rush for 2,000 yards, finishing with 2,015.
Ranked No. 25 at the start of the season, the Nittany Lions climbed as high as No. 10 before their bowl loss.
But not all was rosy in Happy Valley. After controversial calls in overtime losses to Iowa and Michigan, Paterno and athletic director Tim Curley called for a comprehensive review of Big Ten officiating. In all, Penn State’s four losses came by a combined 20 points.
Penn State’s nine wins were the most since 1999, and its fourth-place finish in the Big Ten the best since 1997. The Nittany Lions ended their two-year bowl drought by playing on New Year’s Day for the first time in five years.
“After the last two years,” guard Matt Schmitt said, “the way we played this season, to be 9-4, it’s been a fun year. It definitely didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but not everything goes right.”
