Penn State loses first game minus Paterno

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania (AP) ― Capping the worst week in school history, No. 12 Penn State couldn’t overcome a 17-point deficit and was stopped short on a fourth-and-1 late in a 17-14 loss Saturday to No. 19 Nebraska.

The outcome was secondary.

A tumultuous chapter that began with the arrest of former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on shocking child sexual abuse charges ended Saturday with Penn State (8-2, 5-1 Big Ten) losing in its first game of the post-Joe Paterno era. The winningest major college football coach ever was fired Wednesday.

Rex Burkhead ran for 121 yards and a touchdown for Nebraska (8-2, 4-2) before the Nittany Lions scored 14 points on two second-half touchdown runs by Stephfon Green.

But a key drive ended when Silas Redd was stopped on the fourth down with 1:49 left at the Penn State 38.

School president Rod Erickson met the Nittany Lions in the locker room afterward and praised, “how much courage, how much heart, and how much character” the players had, he said.

Most Penn State fans heeded calls for a “blueout,” wearing the school’s familiar dark blue in support of victims of child sexual abuse. Fans formed the outline of a blue ribbon in the student section.

“We are ... Penn State,” roared the crowd through the afternoon, the signature State College cheer.

But this school’s identity has forever changed.

“I think today it just made the healing process start to begin,” interim coach Tom Bradley said.

Sandusky, architect of the “Linebacker U.” defenses, was charged last weekend with sexually abusing eight boys over 15 years. The athletic director and a university vice president were charged with perjury and failure to report a 2002 allegation to police, and Paterno was fired following mounting fury he did not do more about the charge ― that Sandusky assaulted a boy in the Penn State football showers ― than pass it along to his bosses. President Graham Spanier also was ousted for similar reasons.