On one side of the podium in the post-game media room sat Matt McGloin. A few feet away sat Evan Royster.
The two were sharing the stage, the spotlight, the afterglow of a 41-31 victory over Michigan in Beaver Stadium on Saturday.
And the best night of their football lives.
Royster, a senior running back, rushed for 150 yards on a career-high 29 carries, with first-quarter touchdown runs of four and one yards to break Curt Warner’s all-time rushing record of 3,368 yards at Penn State.
Royster broke the record on a 20-yarder with three minutes, 56 seconds to play in the first quarter. It was an inside hand-off from McGloin, designed to send Royster up the middle. Finding that clogged, he carefully improvised and shifted off of left tackle for a first down and Penn State history.
The record would explain why, for 30 minutes between 9 and 10 p.m. on Saturday night, “Royster” was one of the top 10 Tweeted words in the United States, as well as the world.
Royster was all atwitter.
“I can’t remember when I’ve been this happy playing a football game,” said Royster, who broke Warner’s record on 77 fewer carries but in six more games overall. Royster now has 3,518 career rushing yards.
(Counting Warner’s four bowl games, Warner had 3,872 rushing yards on 725 carries, a 5.3-yard average, in 44 games. Royster’s 3,518 yards have come on only 595 carries, in 45 games, for a 5.9-yard average. With just 355 yards to go in five games, Royster may also pass Warner’s unofficial total.)
McGLOIN: JUST THE START
McGloin started in place of freshman Rob Bolden, out following a concussion last week against Minnesota — although “if we had a problem,” said quarterback coach Jay Paterno, “we could have played Rob.”
That was far from necessary.
McGloin completed 17 of 28 passes for 250 yards, with a 20-yard scoring pass to the resurrected Graham Zug, and also ran for a one-yard touchdown, both in the second quarter.
He was superb in the clutch. Under his direction the Nittany Lions (5-3, 2-2) were 10 of 16 on third down and six of seven in the red zone, five of them touchdowns, against the hapless defense of Michigan (5-3, 1-3).
The redshirt sophomore from Scranton set the tone on the Lions’ first drive of the game, when was three for three on third downs — he threw for two first downs and all-out sprinted 11 yards for a third. The 14 plays on the 71-yard drive comprised the Lions’ second longest drive of the year.
“Matt was calm, cool and collected,” said Zug, who caught three passes, just one fewer than he grabbed in the first seven games combined, a far cry from the 26 he grabbed in the first seven games of 2009, when he had Darryl Clark tossing his passes. Last year, Zug torched Michigan for three TD receptions.
“It was a great feeling,” McGloin said after the game. “I’m just glad the coaches believed in me, the players believed in me, and, most importantly, the fans believed in me tonight. They were really behind me tonight and I’m glad we got the ‘W.’ ”
ROYSTER’S RUN FOR RESPECT
Perhaps that has been Royster’s “problem” – he’s too cool, too calm, too collected.
In postgame interviews over the past three years, he’s been modulated, never too high. Often, he has been analytical; sometimes, even critical. (Less so this year.)
Perhaps that has been the case in the locker room and on the practice field as well. Most probably, that was why he was not named a team captain — odd given his status as a soon-to-be three-year starter.
On Saturday night, though, on the field he was the Royster of old. It was Royster’s third straight big game against the Wolverines; he ran for 100 yards in the Nittany Lions’ 46-17 win in 2008 and 174 yards in their 35-10 win in 2009. That gave Penn State a whopping 122-58 margin and a 3-0 record against Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, likely to be fired at season’s end.
It was Royster’s 14th game over 100 yards, and Penn State has won all 14.
He deserved to be happy. It’s been a tough year.
ROYSTER LACKING BOOSTERS
Royster had endured heaps of criticism since before the season even started, in the early days of summer drills. Even the “Blue Royster Cult” banner in the student section is no more, its caretakers graduated and no underclassmen willing to assume the mantle.
What may have hurt most, although Royster has not admitted it publicly, is that good deal of the criticism had come from his head coach, Joe Paterno.
That may have its roots in the fact that Royster spent the summer at home, and not campus. His weight admittedly increased, and at least one report indicated that upon his return his body fat had doubled.
In his press conference at the start of summer drills, Paterno adroitly dodged the one question about Royster, at that time 481 yards from Warner’s record.
Three weeks later, he took Royster to the woodshed, albeit gently.
“Evan Royster has got to…he’s a little heavy. He’s about 220,” Paterno said five days before the season opener. “And I keep telling him that he’s not going to have the kind of endurance he needs unless he loses some weight. But he knows what’s going on. And he’s a good back. He’s a good back.
“I think he’s one step away, maybe a little bit, just a little bit more intensity away from being better.”
To his credit, it’s not anything the coach didn’t tell Royster in person.
“Joe came up to me and told me to drop a few pounds,” Royster recalled. “There’s no argument there.”
Or with the idea that Paterno may have been right when he said the back needed more intensity. And he may have meant it when he later said that other backs had earned as many carries. Harsh for a senior who started his 33rd game on Saturday, who has never been in trouble off the field and who is a good student.
It may have meant to be motivation, but aside from a 187-yard performance against Temple, the criticism did not work.
In 2010 thus far, Royster has had games of 40, 32, 38, 56, 35 and 62 yards. His carries were off by four a game, yet he still averaged 5.1 yards per rush entering the Michigan game. That’s down from the 5.8 through the first eight games of 2009, when he had a decidedly better offensive line and a much, much better quarterback to ease the burden.
PATERNO: ‘GOOD JOB’
Perhaps the biggest indignity came on Tuesday of last week, with Royster just 31 yards away from the record. Paterno was handed a cupcake of a question, the reporter begging Joe to put the icing on top of Royster’s run for the record.
Paterno wouldn’t bite.
The question: “Evan Royster is on the verge of becoming the all-time leading rusher. Could you talk about his career and what he’s meant to the program?”
Given the floor, all JoePa could say about Royster was this:
“I think he’s done a good job.”
After the game, Evan The Even-Tempered was asked about said comments. He shrugged it off. It also didn’t seem to matter to Royster that his coach didn’t say a word to him about the record during the week leading up to the game, or after the game, in fact.
Paterno did give Royster his due after the game. Sort of.
“I thought that’s the best he’s played. I thought he had a little more running room,” Paterno said. “He had a chance to make some decisions and he had time to make some decisions because we stayed on some blocks. I think he overall did a good job.
“He must have broken the record. Did he break it today?” Paterno asked. “I don’t know how many yards he got. But he’s a good back, a good solid back. But he’s like all of them; he needs some running room. I think he got some today and he took advantage of it.”
That’s not exactly singing Royster’s praises, if you know what I mean.
Even if he is in Paterno’s doghouse, the coach could have thrown the record-breaker a bone.
In turn, Royster was kind while fielding at a couple of similar questions about the Paterno’s impending 400th victory — the win against Michigan was No. 399. “That’s a goal of ours, to get him that win, we want to do that for him, and also be bowl eligible,” he said.
‘WE COULDN’T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT HIM’
With games against Northwestern (next week in Beaver Stadium), at Ohio State, against Indiana at Maryland’s FedEx Field and a home date against Michigan State the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Nittany Lions should be able to find one win somewhere.
Northwestern, and who Penn State’s quarterback will be against the Wildcats (6-2, 2-2), were already on people’s minds.
“Will you start next week?” McGloin was asked by one of the 30 or so reporters crowding around him.
He took a deep breath.
“You have to ask the coaches about that,” McGloin said with a crooked smile. (Jay Paterno said the job was Bolden’s.)
A class guy, the Nittany Lions’ newest star felt more comfortable talking about the Nittany Lions’ oldest star.
“Evan had a breakout game,” praised McGloin. “He set up the play action and the passing game downfield. We couldn’t have done it without him.”
It was nice to hear somebody say it.
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