proving,
the program was faltering, and
eventually Penn State came to seem like
college football's version of Epcot Cen-
ter – a painstaking re-creation of a na-
tional-championship-caliber program
rather than the actual national-champi-
onship-caliber program it had been dur-
ing the :rst three decades of Joe Pater-
no's head coaching career. As marvelous
as the atmosphere was, Penn State
couldn't keep up on the :eld during the
:rst decade or so of the 21st century. It
played host to eight top-10 opponents
from 2000-2011 and went 2-6. The av-
erage margin of defeat in those six losses
was nearly two touchdowns.
But even a
