Joe Paterno remembers a time when his Penn State Nittany Lions would take the field against the Syracuse Orangemen and epic battles would ensue.

He remembers Lenny Moore, one of his tailbacks, carrying the ball for more than 100 yards, while Jim Brown did the same for the opponent. He remembers running back Floyd Little burning the Penn State defense for three touchdowns and waving to him on the sideline as he breezed past him.

What was once a titanic matchup between two college football goliaths has been reduced to an afterthought on the Nittany Lions’ schedule, a schedule some have criticized for its lack of non-conference strength. In the last few seasons, Penn State has scheduled vastly inferior non-conference opponents, putting it on the fast track to the national title game.

At least in theory that’s how it would work. Last season, Paterno’s team bulldozed its non-conference opponents en route to a 9-0 start, but eventually suffered its first loss – a 24-23 nail-biter to Big Ten foe Iowa – in the 10th week of the season. The loss put Penn State’s national title contention in serious jeopardy.

But Paterno said he doesn’t concern himself with the criticism his team receives because of its non-conference schedule.

‘I don’t even think about it,’ Paterno said on the weekly Big Ten coaches’ teleconference Tuesday. ‘I don’t think anybody knows who’s tough or not tough. Syracuse looks like a pretty darn good football team to me. When we scheduled Syracuse, at that time, they were at the top of the pack.’

Paterno was referring to the 2001 season, when Syracuse finished with a 10-3 record, including a victory over Kansas State in the Insight.com Bowl. The two longtime rivals scheduled a home-and-home series in June 2002, culminating Saturday at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa. (noon, Big Ten Network). In the first game of the home-and-home, the Nittany Lions beat the Orange, 55-13, last season at the Carrier Dome.

The misery of the Syracuse football program over the past four years does not need further documentation, but it provides more ammunition to those who say that the Nittany Lions pad their schedule to avoid non-conference losses. Penn State has feasted on non-conference opponents since 2004, going 16-1 over the last five seasons, with the only loss coming against Notre Dame in 2006.

The critics may have a legitimate gripe. This season, Penn State’s non-conference opponents include Akron, Syracuse, Temple and Eastern Illinois. Those four teams combined to have a .375 winning percentage last season, and none of them finished with a .500 or better record.

The last time Syracuse finished with at least a .500 record was in 2004, when the Orange finished the season at 6-6. The winning percentages of Penn State’s non-conference foes since that year have left a lot to be desired.

Akron has accumulated a 14-22 record since 2006. Temple, a fellow Mid-Atlantic Conference foe, has 10 wins to stack up against its 27 losses. Syracuse has also gone 10-37 since 2005. Only Eastern Illinois has managed to emerge with a winning record since 2005, compiling a 31-19 record, though the Panthers finished the 2008 campaign at 5-7.

Compared to other elite Big Ten programs, Penn State’s non-conference schedule seems Lilliputian. Since 2004, Ohio State has squared off against national powerhouses Texas (2005, 2006) and Southern California (2008). The Buckeyes are also playing the Trojans Saturday. Michigan has faced Notre Dame every year for the past seven seasons, a trend that will continue on Saturday.

In conference, Penn State is a different team. The Nittany Lions have amassed a 25-15 record in conference play since 2004, though this is not as strong as their nearly unblemished non-conference tally. Last season, Penn State’s margin of victory against its non-conference opponents was 42.75 points. In conference, it was 22.3 points.

The BCS – which determines postseason bowl games – uses a combination of two human polls and six computer polls to determine its rankings throughout the season. Ultimately, this formula decides which teams play in the national championship game.

Mike Finn, a representative for the BCS, said that strength of schedule has an effect on a school’s ranking, but that the non-conference portion of the schedule is not factored in separately.

‘I don’t know how much non-conference directly fits into it,’ Finn said of the BCS rankings. ‘Overall strength of schedule fits into each of the six computer polls and indirectly into the human polls – however those voters look at strength of schedule.’

Finn added that each of the six computer formulas calculates its rankings differently.

Even though Penn State’s non-conference schedule may not directly influence its chances of reaching the national championship game, it does have an effect on its overall strength of schedule. One conference loss could leave the Nittany Lions on the outside looking in when bowl season arrives – a potential downside of scheduling weaker non-conference opponents.

During his news conference in State College Tuesday, a reporter asked Paterno how Saturday’s matchups between USC and Ohio State, and Notre Dame and Michigan might affect perceptions of the Big Ten.

‘I think that’s something you guys can analyze better than I can,’ Paterno said. ‘What difference does it make how I perceive the Big Ten? It’s up to what the public does and the media does.’

Paterno is right about one thing. What the media does will determine his team’s fate when all is said and done this year.

azmeola@syr.edu

Published on September 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm