Penn State rallies past Northwestern, 35-21, to hand Paterno his 400th win

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - It looked as if all of the planning at Penn State to celebrate Joe Paterno's 400th career victory would go for naught Saturday during a long, gloomy first half in which Northwestern took a three-touchdown lead with about a minute remaining.

But good fortune shone through the twilight when the Nittany Lions took possession of the football at their 9-yard line with 50 seconds to go and two time-outs left. Rather than run out the clock, the Lions blew through the Wildcats' defense and scored their first touchdown with three seconds to play.

The momentum swing set the stage for an epic second half in which the Lions scored 28 unanswered points to match the biggest comeback of Paterno's distinguished 45-year career, and gain a 35-21 victory over Northwestern in front of a festive Beaver Stadium crowd of 104,147.

Paterno, who will turn 84 next month, became the first coach in Football Bowl Subdivision history to reach the 400-win mark. Lost in all the hoopla, however, was the fact that the Nittany Lions (6-3, 3-2 Big Ten Conference) became bowl eligible for the 37th time under Paterno thanks to their third consecutive win.

For the coach, the most important part of the victory was watching his team hang together under adversity.

"To see them come back the way they came back was really - and I know it sounds phony - but it was probably more important to me than those 350 wins or 400 wins," he said. "I just think some of these kids now know what it takes to get it done, and that, to me, was the important thing."

In the process, however, the Lions' quarterback situation became even cloudier.

Matt McGloin, a redshirt sophomore, came on in relief after freshman Rob Bolden started and played the first two series. After a slow start, McGloin wound up completing 15 of his final 19 passes, finishing 18 of 29 for 225 yards and four touchdowns, with no interceptions.

"We feel good out there together," McGloin said. "We struggled early on. But at the end of the first half, we started to get things going. We started feeling a little better. The crowd started to get into it. The sideline started to get into it."

Bolden took a ferocious hit and lost a fumble on the play, but Paterno said he wasn't injured. He said he just wanted to give McGloin a chance to see what he could do.

"I thought he deserved a shot," Paterno said. "I literally made up my mind that if there was time, I was going to go with the two quarterbacks and see what was going to happen, and it turned out the other kid did all right . . . so I decided to stay with him."

Penn State gained a season-high 528 yards. Evan Royster ran for 134 yards and freshman Silas Redd added 131, becoming the first Lions tandem to rush for 130 or more yards since Lydell Mitchell and Franco Harris did it in 1971.

Meanwhile, the Lions' defense held the Wildcats (6-3, 2-3) to 130 total yards in the second half while shutting them down.

But none of that might have happened had Penn State not gotten on the board before halftime. McGloin threw a 7-yard scoring pass to Brett Brackett, who made a leaping catch deep in the end zone, dragging his back foot in bounds.

"At first, I thought we were going to run it out," McGloin said. "But Evan picked up a nice chunk of yardage on the first play and we believed we could get the job done."

The Lions were confident heading into the locker room, and the defense knew that with the offense finally cooking, it had to step up.

"It was somewhat quiet in there," linebacker Chris Colasanti said, "but you knew when you looked at the guys at halftime that they were ready to go. It definitely showed on the field, with the guys building on the excitement of every single person's play."

The Nittany Lions scored on their first four possessions after halftime. McGloin hit 297-pound redshirt freshman tight end Nate Cadogan with a 3-yard scoring pass on the opening drive of the half.

Then the touchdowns started flowing faster - a 36-yard streak pattern down the sideline from McGloin to Derek Moye, a 4-yard run by Redd, a 13-yard screen pass from McGloin to Royster - to make it a 14-point game about 31/2 minutes into the fourth quarter.

The Wildcats, led by Bethlehem Liberty High graduate Dan Persa, made one last drive to the Penn State 9 before Persa threw an incompletion to Mike Trumpy in the end zone on fourth down. The celebration started shortly thereafter.