Prato: Remembering Paterno's first win

Maryland coach Lou Saban may have had the most insightful description of Penn State’s 15-7 victory over his Terps in Joe Paterno’s debut as the Nittany Lions’ head coach on Sept. 16, 1966, at Beaver Stadium.

As Paterno remembered in the 2000 book “Quotable Joe,” written by one-time Penn State associate athletic director L. Budd Thalman: “After the game, I ran over to Lou [Saban]… and I couldn’t find Lou. I felt a little bit dejected. I went home and he called me on Monday and said, ‘I apologize for not coming over to congratulate you, but we were both so lousy I didn’t have the heart to congratulate anybody.’ ”

Saban was also coaching his first game at Maryland, but he wasn’t a rookie head coach like Paterno. Saban had been a head coach in the upstart American Football League for six years and was fresh off winning back-to-back AFL championships for Buffalo in 1964 and ’65. So he certainly knew difference between good and lousy coaching.

Watching the vintage video from that historic game, one sees a lot of mistakes typical of season-opening games, and as Paterno had predicted on the eve of the encounter, it was an error-prone, low-scoring defensive struggle.

The tempo of the game was set shortly after the kickoff. On the fourth play of the game, the Lions had a 50-yard touchdown pass nullified by a penalty for an ineligible receiver downfield. Two plays later, a 21-yard pass was called back by an identical penalty. When Maryland gained possession, an interference penalty by Penn State on a third-and-12 put the Terps on the Penn State 15-yard line. On the next play, they surprised the Lions by running instead of passing, and scored a touchdown to take a 7-0 lead.

What happened over the rest of the warm, balmy afternoon had many fans in the Band Day crowd of 40,911 – nearly 6,000 less than capacity – wondering about the competence of their new head coach. “It was probably as poorly coached a college football game as you ever saw,” Paterno recalled later.

The play of the game came early in the second quarter. Penn State forced Maryland to punt from its own end zone on fourth-and-26 at the 2-yard-line. Sophomore middle guard Mike Reid, making his first start in an era when freshmen were ineligible, broke through and appeared to block the punt with his stomach, sending the ball out of the end zone for a safety. “There’s a sophomore for you,” Paterno joked after the game. “If he’d blocked it with his hands, we’d have had a touchdown.” After the game, Saban said Reid’s blocked punt was the turning point.

Five minutes later, the Nittany Lions did get their touchdown at the end of a 60-yard drive on a 2-yard scamper on fourth down by quarterback Jack White. A pass for the two-point conversion failed, but after the ensuing kickoff, junior Bob Capretto (now a member of the Penn State board of trustees) intercepted a Maryland pass to set up a 23-yard field goal by Tom Sherman that gave the Lions an 11-7 lead at the half.

There were just four more points in the game, and all would be attributed to the aggressive Reid, making him an overnight darling of the Penn State fans. On the second play of the fourth quarter, after a goal-line stand by Maryland, Reid and defensive end Bob Vukmer were officially credited with the second safety after the duo and the other defensive end, Bill Morgan, tackled Maryland quarterback Al Pastrana in the end zone.

In the fourth quarter, Paterno decided to have punter Wayne Corbett kick three times on third down because, as he told Ridge Riley of the Alumni Newsletter, “We were winning with the defense, especially well under punts, and I didn’t want to put added pressure of a fourth down situation.” That didn’t please the fans, Riley reported, writing that “a segment of the home crowd gave the new coach a baptism of boos.”

As time was winding down, the Terps recovered a Penn State fumble, giving them one last chance to rally. But the Nittany Lions’ pass rush chased reserve quarterback Phil Petry into his own end zone, and rather than take a sack, he threw the ball away, resulting in a third safety. The officials in the press box did not credit anyone with that safety, but somehow over the past 50 years, Reid has been listed in Penn State’s official football records as the team’s record-holder with three safeties in one game.

However, this writer reviewed the game video years ago and saw that Reid was nowhere near Maryland’s quarterback when that third safety occurred. Actually, tackle Frank Pringle caused the safety by forcing Petry deep into the end zone, hitting his arm and sending the ball spiraling away towards the right end zone line. And remember that first safety Reid reportedly blocked with his stomach that Saban said was the key to Penn State’s victory? Reid did hit the football but with his right hand, not his stomach. He should have scored the touchdown, Joe!

Despite the fact that the game was not televised, Reid’s overall play that day brought him national attention when Sports Illustrated and the Associated Press named him Lineman of the Week. The Daily Collegian reported that Reid “roamed the Maryland backfield all afternoon like he was a member of their team.”

The only reason Reid’s three alleged safeties are not an NCAA record is that the NCAA attributes these two-point scoring plays to teams rather than to specific players. As last year, four teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision were tied for the single-game record with three. The three teams that were tied with Penn State were Arizona State (vs. Nebraska, Sept. 21, 1996), North Texas (vs. La.-Lafayette, Sept. 27, 2003) and Bowling Green (vs. Miami, Ohio, Nov. 15, 2005).

As we now know, Reid went on to become one of Penn State’s greatest players, winning the Maxwell Award as college football’s outstanding player in 1969, as well as the Outland Trophy for best interior lineman. He was inducted into the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame in 1987 and has had a Grammy Award-winning career as a songwriter and artist.

The Nittany Lions’ 1966 co-captains were halfback Mike Irwin, who now is part of the popular Nitwits television and internet show produced by Altoona TV station WTAJ, and linebacker John Runnells, who would become the first of Paterno’s 47 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans later that fall. They're set to participate in the on-field coin toss Saturday in commemoration of the anniversary.

After a 4-6 record at Maryland that season, Saban returned to the AFL and spent 10 years as a head coach at Denver and Buffalo before going back to the college ranks.

Of course, Joe Paterno became a college football legend, winning 408 more games in the next 50 years to set an NCAA record in the bowl subdivision. And it all started with that “lousy” game on Sept. 16, 1966, at Beaver Stadium.