Oct 25, 2006 4 min read

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) – His son’s birthday party provided just a brief respite. By the time Joe Paterno returned home, he got back to business. A top priority this week was fixing what ails the Penn State offense, and in particular, the offensive line.

“I went over there for a couple of hours, we came home and I started to try to figure out what we might be able to do to make us a better football team against Purdue,” Paterno said about the short trip to his son Jay’s house for his 38th birthday party on Saturday. The shindig followed the team’s less-than-inspiring offensive performance in a 26-12 win over Illinois.

Actually, father and son, who is the Nittany Lions’ quarterbacks coach, both have some work to do for this week’s critical game against the Boilermakers (5-3, 2-2 Big Ten). The outcome could go a long way toward determining whether Penn State (5-3, 3-2) can stay on target for a New Year’s Day bowl game.

But before the Lions start dreaming about spending the holidays somewhere warm, there’s a matter of fixing the offensive line, which has struggled the last two weeks. The running game behind Tony Hunt has sputtered and quarterback Anthony Morelli – who returned from a concussion last week – often hasn’t a lot of time to throw.

Paterno was so upset last week that he called the offense “lousy” about a half-dozen times. His tune changed – slightly – after watching film the last couple of days.

“There were some aspects of it that were better than I thought they were. Overall, I didn’t think it was a particularly good performance by us,” he said.

Paterno had a couple of possible explanations for the line’s play against the Illini. First, their legs may not have been as fresh after the unit had to put extra time in during the previous week to accommodate more practice for third- and fourth-string quarterbacks, the coach said. Morelli and backup Daryll Clark (concussion) weren’t cleared to play until two days before the Illini game.

Second, Paterno has had to mix-and-match on the line due to injuries or ineffectiveness. More shuffling could come this week, too.

“We are not doing anything different from week to week, but we are doing it with different people,” Paterno said. “That has hurt them. I am hopeful that we will get better.”

Questions about the line have also limited what plays Penn State can call, Paterno said. Throwing over the middle isn’t as much of an option because it takes longer for those plays to develop, and that means more time needed to protect the quarterback. The tight ends and running backs haven’t had many looks either.

Receiver Deon Butler suggested that perhaps some players need to get more vocal on the field.

“Halfway through the season, it just seems our offense doesn’t have a lot of spunk out there,” Butler said. “It doesn’t seem that we have the same fire as last season.”

“Us being the older guys, the wideouts having played in big games before and having had last season under our belt, we have to be able to adjust and be able to lead a team,” he said. “We have to step out of our shell a little bit, be more vocal. … Maybe that’s what we have to do to get this offense rolling.”

Paterno wouldn’t mind more success running the ball, too.

“Our problem is the running game. It is hard to throw the football when you can’t run any better than we have been able to run,” he said. “We are pecking away. I don’t know how else to tell you.”