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By JERRY KELLAR; Times Leader Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 16, 1994     Page: 1B

Even when things looked their bleakest at Memorial Stadium last weekend,
Joe Paterno never, ever felt as if Penn State was going to lose.
   
Neither did his players.
    “Never,” wide receiver Bobby Engram said. “I always believed we were going
to come back.”
   
The second-ranked Nittany Lions (9-0) overcame a 21-point deficit to stun
Illinois, 35-31, Saturday in Champaign. The 1994 Big Ten Conference champs
capped their amazing comeback with an impressive 14-play, 96-yard drive for
the winning score in the final minutes of the game.
   
The Lions’ methodical march to victory impressed even Paterno.
   
“They’re a very disciplined football team,” the veteran coach said Tuesday
during his weekly teleconference. “You go 96 yards like they had to do at the
end of the ballgame and not have a penalty, not have a dropped ball … those
kind of things come from discipline.”
   
And discipline, according to Paterno, can only be obtained through hard
work.
   
“They practice that way,” he said. “So I think when they get into a
situation where they have to do it, they discipline themselves to do it over
and over again in practice so that they’re very comfortable doing it.”
   
Now, it’s gotten to the point where this team simply refuses to believe it
can be stopped.
   
“It’s getting to that stage,” Paterno said. “I think these kids have got
that feeling that they will do what it takes to win a football game. We’ve had
some people do things in the clutch. The more you see that, the more you get
that feeling that you could probably do that.”
   
So confident was Paterno in his team that he remained calm at halftime,
even though Illinois held a 28-14 lead.
   
“I said, `Let’s just play our game and we’ll be OK,’ ” he recalled. “We’ll
be OK as long as everybody here stays tight, tends to their knitting and
nobody thinks we have got to do something extraordinary in the second half to
win it.”
   
Fifth-year senior quarterback Kerry Collins was masterful in leading the
game-winning drive. He completed all seven of his passes for 60 yards, three
to Engram. All this coming after Collins misfired on eight of his first nine
passes in the first half.
   
“He was 13-for-15 in the fourth quarter, in the clutch,” Paterno boasted.
“You get all kinds of stats when things are going easy, but that’s not the
point. When it comes down to one guy you’d like to have on your team to win a
tough football game right now, you’d have to show me somebody better than
Kerry Collins.”
   
The 6-foot-5, 235-pounder from West Lawn. Pa., continues to be the nation’s
top-rated passer. He was named the Big Ten’s Offensive Player of the Week for
his performance at Illinois. It was the third time Collins has received the
honor this season.
   
“Right now, he’s just a great quarterback,” Paterno said. “I hope he starts
getting the credit that he deserves.”
   
Notes: Saturday’s 1 p.m. game against Northwestern will be Penn State’s
200th at Beaver Stadium. The Wildcats are 3-6-1 and lost 49-13 to Iowa last
weekend. … The Lions’ 14-game winning streak is the nation’s longest. The
streak is State’s longest since capturing 19 straight games in 1977 and ’78.
… Penn State has had three 96-yard scoring drives and one 99-yard scoring
march this year.