Sacca

LOS ANGELES -- The Southern California-Penn State game yesterday turned out to be a tale of two fourth-down plays.When the Trojans faced a fourth-and-goal at the Penn State 1-yard line in the third quarter, they called the classic USC tailback-over-the-top play.Ricky Ervins dived over the top the way Charles White and Marcus Allen did so often in the past and scored the touchdown that gave the Trojans a 19-7 lead and proved to be the difference in a 19-14 victory before 70,594 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Unbeaten Penn State, a running team all September, went to the air to beat Rutgers, 38-24, last night at Giants Stadium for its fifth straight victory.Quarterback John Sacca, from Delran, N.J., came home to throw for 303 yards and three touchdowns for the No. 8 Nittany Lions and set up next week's showdown with No. 2 Miami in University Park, Pa.The Hurricanes held up their end of the confrontation with a 19-16 triumph over Florida State earlier in the day.Penn State hurdled the last obstacle to the Miami matchup with a strong second-half performance from Sacca, whose older brother Tony passed for 220 yards in a 37-17 victory over the Scarlet Knights a year ago."

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Those who expected the fall of Communism before the liberation of a Penn State quarterback were right. With a grudging bow to history, Joe Paterno finally removed the shackles from his passing game last night.Joe Blah -- er, Joe Pa -- will deny it, but the Kickoff Classic amounted to glasnost in Happy Valley. Senior quarterback Tony Sacca set a school record by throwing five touchdown passes in the Nittany Lions' 34-22 victory over Georgia Tech.Next thing you know, his arm will fall off. As it was, Sacca played with sore ribs, completing 13 of 24 passes for 206 yards without an interception.

MIAMI -- Penn State showed yesterday why all the talk of a national championship going into the season was not some ludicrous fantasy. But at the end of a long, steamy afternoon inside the Orange Bowl, Miami showed the Nittany Lions something else.The door.The second-ranked Hurricanes needed three long, second-half touchdowns, as well as a favorable ruling by the officials after an interception with 64 seconds left, to hold off ninth-ranked Penn State, 26-20, before a slightly relieved crowd of 75,723.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- It was a colorless game, except for the 31 yellow penalty flags that rained down on the field and the rare fashion statement several Penn State players made with their ankles wrapped in black tape.And it was a sloppy game, filled with ineptitude, almost lacking in memorable performances.All it was, really, was a 37-17 win for 10th-ranked Penn State over Rutgers before a homecoming crowd of 95,729 at Beaver Stadium. For the Nittany Lions, it was a little salve to heal the hurt of last week's tough loss to Miami.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno summed up Maryland's plight in a single word: Speed.Make that three words: Lack of speed."Maryland needs more speed," Paterno said after Penn State's 47-7 romp over the Terps yesterday before 57,416 at Memorial Stadium. "We have a bit more of it, enough to do it when we have to, in the clutch. Our receivers could outrun them."Paterno was being charitable. The Nittany Lions seemed to be faster than Maryland from the top to the bottom of the depth chart.Paterno also went out of his way to note that Maryland played decently early in the season until some key starters bowed out for the season with injuries.

Success is relative in college football, especially at places like Penn State. Consider last season's 9-3 record for the Nittany Lions and their reaction to it.Except for a nine-game winning streak that followed losses to Texas and Southern Cal and preceded a 24-17 loss to Florida State in the Blockbuster Bowl, Happy Valley wasn't a very happy place."

CINCINNATI -- There are moral victories in college football, and then there are moral lessons.The Cincinnati Bearcats got one of the former and Penn State one of the latter Saturday night, when the Nittany Lions staggered away from Nippert Stadium with a 24-20, hold-your-breath victory.Staggered?This was only the season opener, and already Penn State was down to its third quarterback, freshman Wally Richardson.The Nittany Lions offense quickly became one-dimensional with injuries to the team's top two quarterbacks, Kerry Collins, who broke a finger last month playing volleyball, and John Sacca, who injured his right collarbone taking a second-quarter hit on a scramble.

If coach Joe Paterno's most pressing decision today is who starts at quarterback for Penn State against Eastern Michigan, the Nittany Lions could be in for another lark.A week after they routed Temple, 49-8, with freshman Wally Richardson at quarterback, the eighth-ranked Lions (2-0) face Eastern Michigan (0-2) of the Mid-American Conference at 1 p.m. in University Park, Pa.Richardson last week became the second true freshman -- Tony Sacca was the first in 1988 -- to start at quarterback in Paterno's 27 years as coach at Penn State.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Happy Valley was a misnomer for this scenic setting yesterday after Penn State pounded overmatched Eastern Michigan, 52-7.The line of long faces formed to the right:There was quarterback John Sacca, who threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to flanker O. J. McDuffie in the third quarter, only to find an irate Joe Paterno waiting for him on the Nittany Lions' sideline seconds later.There was tailback Richie Anderson, who rushed for two touchdowns, but admitted he doesn't like to play in games like this.