EVANSTON, Ill. — For the second straight year, Matt McGloin and Silas Redd played key parts in earning Coach Joe Paterno yet another milestone.
And once again, it was Northwestern on the wrong end of history.
The Nittany Lions (7-1, 4-0 Big Ten) scored the second-most points they had all year in a 34-24 win over the Wildcats on Saturday at Ryan Field, giving Joe Paterno his 408th victory as head coach — tying him with Eddie Robinson for most among Division I coaches.
Unlike the first seven games of the 2011 season, the Lions’ coaches went with one quarterback and stuck with him.
It worked.
Nearly a year after McGloin conducted a comeback from a 21-point deficit to defeat the Wildcats, 35-21, and give Paterno his 400th coaching win, he went at it again.
The redshirt junior passed for 192 yards on 17-for-26 passing and two touchdowns. His 26 attempts were the most he had since he threw 41 times against Florida last season.
“I wasn’t really surprised,” McGloin said of playing the entire game. “We were moving the ball great as an offense and there was really no need to float two guys in and out, and I’m happy with the way we played today.”
Paterno gave no definitive answer as to why he started McGloin over Bolden for the first time all season. He said only that he stuck with McGloin because the game was going back-and-forth on offense.
Paterno tried to play down the quarterback issue and instead chose to focus on the win — one that tied him with a man he admired.
“He had some of the greatest athletes,” Paterno said of Robinson. “Eddie and I worked together on a couple committees. Eddie Robinson was a lot more than a football coach.”
As he has for the past month, Redd continued to play a key part in the Lions’ offensive attack. He continued his red-hot October with his fourth straight 100-yard rushing game, as he finished with 164 yards on the ground.
Redd did much of the damage in the first two quarters. He ended the half with 119 yards on 11 carries, including a 42-yarder with 31 seconds on the first-half clock to take the Lions to the Wildcats’ 12-yard line.
The run set up a Stephfon Green one-yard touchdown carry, his first of the season, which put the Lions up 27-24. It was a lead they would never relinquish.
It was fitting that Paterno tied Robinson while seeing his team execute a dominant running game. Left tackle Quinn Barham said it felt good having the offense play up to its potential.
While Redd’s numbers stood out, it was the play in the trenches that the players and coaches talked about.
“He’s a good back. He gets better every week,” offensive coordinator Galen Hall said of Redd. “We’re really happy with him, but the thing we’re more happy with is that he made a couple of blocks on pass protection that we’re trying to improve on.”