A day unlike any other at Penn State

STATE COLLEGE - In the interim, they played football - and, for the first time in 62 years, without Joe Paterno as a member of the Penn State coaching staff.

No JoePa in Beaver Stadium, the House That Joe Built, on Senior Day would have been discombobulating enough. But the circumstances of his absence made Nebraska's 17-14 victory Saturday afternoon unlike any game in Penn State's 125-year football history, or maybe any college football game ever played anywhere.

Weighing in on the day's events were Penn State's interim president (Rodney Erickson), who might or might not be retained in that capacity, and the interim head coach (Tom Bradley), who almost certainly won't return beyond this season. There was an interim wide-receivers coach (Terrell Golden), who was filling in for the now-controversial guy (Mike McQueary) who has been placed on administrative leave and wasn't even within the town limits because of death threats he supposedly had received.

One of the upstairs coaches (Jay Paterno, Joe's son) was on the sideline. Familiar faces in odd places were hand-signaling players on the field who were used to receiving those communications from someone else. The visiting head coach (Nebraska's Bo Pelini) would have preferred that they had called the whole thing off. There were two midfield prayer meetings involving both teams, game officials and about 300 former Penn State players, one before the opening kickoff and another after the last seconds had ticked off.

There also were enough mounted troopers outside Gate B to have rescued Custer, and the Blue Band that excluded from its play list two upbeat standards ("Hey Baby" and "Sweet Caroline") performed at all home games because they apparently didn't fit into the more restrained atmosphere.

Some of those in the announced attendance of 107,903 paid tribute to Paterno, who had been the head coach since 1966, by wearing black-frame glasses, slightly rolled-up khaki pants and black field shoes. Others had duct tape over their mouths to silently protest the tarnished legend's apparent failure to speak up about what he knew about the child sex-abuse crimes that one of his former assistants, Jerry Sandusky, allegedly committed over at least a 15-year period.

Put it all together and what do you have? Who can say with any degree of certainty? It was, depending upon your point of view, a game that had major ramifications in a purely football context, or meant almost nothing when measured against the larger societal issue that served as a backdrop.

"With all the distractions and everything else that came our way, obviously, it was a week unprecedented in college football history," said Bradley, who just as obviously would have preferred to continue as defensive coordinator under Paterno than to temporarily get his dream job as the result of his boss' Wednesday-night sacking by a Board of Trustees moved to swift oversight action after decades of apparently looking the other way. Then again, the trustees hardly could have continued to stand pat with JoePa's legacy covered by the sooty fallout of Sandusky's arrest for multiple sex crimes against young boys, some of which were allegedly committed within the walls of Penn State's football complex.

The evolving scandal at Penn State is not so much about sports as it is hard news, and will continue to be a hot-button topic even after the bowl season winds down and fans' attention turns to basketball.

"We really have been through a very tough time, no question about that. But we also have displayed the real character of Penn State, the values of Penn State, over the past day now," said Erickson, who was named interim president after the purge that resulted in the rapid removal of Paterno and university president Graham Spanier from their positions, ostensibly for not doing anything to bring an eyewitness account of at least one of Sandusky's alleged despicable acts to the attention of law enforcement agencies that would actually have taken the time to investigate.

The eyewitness to that alleged 2002 assault, then-graduate assistant McQueary, is - or was - the wide-receivers coach, but several days ago he conveyed a message to his players that he was "no longer their coach" and "was done." There doesn't seem to be much ambiguity there.

McQueary, who for some time had been the coach signaling offensive plays from the sideline to the huddle, has come under fire for not physically intervening when he allegedly saw Sandusky sodomizing a 10-year-old in a shower. With McQueary directed by Erickson to stay away for his own safety, those duties fell to quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno, who normally is high above the action in the coaches' box. Bradley promoted Golden, the offensive grad assistant, to interim wideouts coach, but he felt it would have been awkward for Golden to take on some aspects of his expanded duties too soon. And d-line coach Larry Johnson Sr. and linebackers coach Ron Vanderlinden were named co-defensive coordinators in place of Bradley, who now finds himself also in charge of offensive players with whom he hadn't had much previous contact.

It was a lot for the Penn State coaches and players to assimilate. Would the collective mood be surly, as was the case when students angry that Paterno had been let go took to State College streets, overturned a police van and smashed windows? Or would it be as somber and reflective as the candlelight vigil of Friday night, when students bowed their heads and prayed for the victims of child sexual abuse?

As it turned out, the added security was not needed. The Penn State players did not run out of the tunnel, as is the custom, but walked out arm-in-arm. Before too long they were kneeling with the Nebraska players, game officials and 300-plus former Penn State players at midfield in an act of solidarity that was as inspiring as it apparently was unplanned.

"Genuine and moving" is how Erickson described the scene.

Pelini was among those who knelt and prayed, but the Nebraska coach, the father of a 12-year-old, went on record as saying that the game should have been canceled out of respect for past, present and future children who have had their innocence stolen by sexual deviants.

Penn State (8-2, 5-1 Big Ten) could have clinched a share of the conference's Leaders Division title by winning. It made a run at it by scoring two second-half touchdowns after falling behind, 17-0. Now the Lions probably need to win at Ohio State and Wisconsin to advance to the first Big Ten championship game, Dec. 3 in Indianapolis. Nebraska, which is in the Legends Division, improved to 8-2, 4-2.