COMMACK, N.Y. — Back in the not-so-distant old days, keeping up with Penn State football on game days was a scrum. Fortified by the Nittany Mountains, Joe Paterno could keep secrets like not revealing that a true freshman would be the starting quarterback for the first time in 100 years until the first snap, and listeners had to decipher that through static. Now his son Jay Paterno has Twitter followers inside practices.

Back when, listeners went through great distances to get a Penn State Football radio signal. Once there was KDKA 1020 in Pittsburgh and its 50,000 watts. And WCAU 1210 in Philadelphia and its 50,000 watts. But 50,000 watts mean little with daytime interference.

As a Newsday assistant sports editor, I once put the WCAU broadcast in a Saturday radio listing because I believed that if I could get the signal so could Long Islanders on the South shore and people in Brooklyn and Queens. But the boss nixed that listing the next week, despite my protest, because WCAU was not in New York.

A Class of 1962 Penn State journalism graduate used to drive around the top of the Berkshires on Saturday afternoons to get a signal. For a while Penn State joined New York station WNEW 1050 and had a big announcement that Sue and Joe Paterno and former Athletic Director Jim Tarman attended. It was the first time Joe Paterno had been in the current Madison Square Garden. He liked joining the operatic tones of WNEW at the time.

Then the Penn State Football signal jumped across the Hudson River to WJNJ 1160 in Oakland, N.J. Penn State subsidized the broadcast rights for both WNEW and WJNJ for as much as $50,000 a year. But the signal would fade in and out, depending where one tried to listen. In 2000, I sat in a parking lot in central Long Island before a 7 p.m. high school football game kickoff and fiddled on the car radio dial among three Pennsylvania stations – Allentown, York and Philadelphia – and WJNY to keep track of a close Penn State victory.

There were times I used a metal coat-hanger antenna to try to improve the signal. Once I bought a three-hour telephonic broadcast for $70 to listen to the play by play of a Penn State game at Texas. I recently relistened to Fran Fisher and George Paterno doing play by play of a Michigan State game that I had recorded years ago.

So this past weekend (Sept. 2-4) I decided to join the 21st Century and multitask with multimedia to follow season-opening games, including Penn State's 44-14 victory over Division I-AA Youngstown State.

For the cost of a cheeseburger, I bought a cable sports package that includes the Big Ten Network, CBS College Sports, the Big 12, the ACC, Division II. Plus I subscribed to an All-Access audio and video stream from gopsusports.com. And, of course, there is the MacBook to monitor ESPN.com's scoreboard, statistics and play by play. All of which meant fewer miles and fewer hours to Heaven.

Beginning Thursday at 6 p.m. through 11 p.m. Saturday – or 50-plus hours, I kept aware of more than 20 college football games. I used my cable sports package for the first time Thursday night, first seeing Marshall at Ohio State (“Who is Marshall?” WABC's Mark Simone asked Warner Wolf, and then he recalled the 1972 plane crash. Mark, it's where former Jets quarterback Chad Pennington starred.) and then Towson State at Indiana, and Division II Grand Valley State and West Texas A&M, and Florida A&M at Miami, and the some of Pitt at Utah on Versus. Later I listened to Westwood One's broadcast of Utah's upset of Pitt. Plus Southern California at Hawaii on ESPN for a quarter.

On Friday I listened to the Internet streaming by ESPN 950 Philadelphia of Harry Donahue's sensational call of Temple's 31-24 victory over the old-time Division I-AA defending champion Villanova that ended with a bizarre interception return of a Villanova lateral for a touchdown.

And Saturday I confirmed that indeed that Rob Bolden was the first true freshman to start at quarterback since Shorty Miller in 1910 – 16 years before Paterno was born. David Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News recalled Shorty's career in a Sunday column.

Bolden's father left Detroit at 3 A.M. Saturday for the monotonous Interstate 80 drive to be on time for the noon kickoff, and his son did not disappoint. A year ago he was playing at St. Mary's Prep in Oakland, Mich., before a few thousand fans. Now he was starting before a crowd of 101,213 in Beaver Stadium.

Bolden moved to Penn State in late May to begin classes, and he grasped the first lesson, unlike senior tailback Evan Royster. Bolden was organized and precise with his throws in swirling winds, and he properly managed the clock. Bolden completed 20 of 29 passes for 239 yards and 2 touchdowns, with 1 interception.

“Penn State did not expect Bolden to be playing from behind,” analyst, alumnus and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jack Ham said. But he showed poise and confidence in the huddle, though he had to be told to speak less softly to his teammates so they would hear him.

Royster was sloppy, losing his footing and unable to accelerate, finishing with 40 yards on 11 carries, including his longest run of 13 yards. That left 27 yards on 10 carries.

The Beaver Stadium grass made more tackles of Royster than Youngstown State did. Was it the extra off-season weight that Paterno bemoaned? Were the shoes too slick with black polish? Was a reorganized offensive line a problem? Or was it that the slashing of a heavier lacrosse star no longer worked?

The team rushing netted 132 yards, which would be close to a past Royster game.

Youngstown State Coach Eric Wolford, in his first game as a head coach against Paterno's 527th game, was proud his Penguins stymied Royster, recalling 100-yard-plus games Royster had against Illinois when Wolford was an assistant coach there.

At halftime Penn State barely led by 16-7 and seemed to be following an upset formula: letting the underdog hang around in an opener. Then the two-way, all-purpose sparkler Chaz Powell took the second-half kickoff and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown.

Thirty-five years earlier, Penn State had a 100-yard return for a touchdown on Sept. 6, 1975 at Franklin Field by Rich Mauti against Wayne Hardin's Temple Owls in a 26-25 win preserved when Paterno deliberately took a safety rather than punt.

Greg Buttle, the former Jets linebacker and current New York TV and radio personality, was a Penn State captain then. Mauti's son Michael is now a starting linebacker for Penn State. Paterno seemed arrogant then about playing Temple, under pressure from state legislators who wanted games among the three major universities including Pitt, and quipped privately: “Who's the drunk that scheduled Temple?”

This time Paterno had his No. 2 pencil busily taking notes on folded white paper clutched in his left hand when he was not Cursive-writing. He will need to figure out a way to keep No. 1 Alabama under control Saturday night (Sept. 11). It is the highest-ranked team Penn State has played since Miami in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, an upset victory that earned its second national championship in five years.

The multimedia-tasking this coming weekend will be done in person at Bryant-Denny Stadium during the first visit there by collegeBLITZ.com. Alabama entered the Eastern consciousness in 1959 when Bear Bryant brought his team to Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia to play in the first Liberty Bowl. Penn State, with Paterno coordinating the offense, won by 7-0. Two years later

Bryant led Alabama to his first of six national championships.

It would be easier to do the multimedia-tasking without the two Southwest one-stop round-trip flights to Birmingham and four days in a hotel there. But the Bear Bryant Museum would not be visited nor would Woods Hall, where an uncle began his long military career in 1940. It would be easier to do it the way Alan Aycock http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10246/1084748-150.stm

Temple, the preseason Mid-American Conference favorite, came close to joining Pitt among the ignominious. With a 22-21 lead and trying to run out the clock, Temple lost a snap at its 22-yard line. A field goal gave Villanova a 24-22 lead at 1:51.

Temple retaliated with a field goal for a 25-24 lead at 0:03. On the kickoff came the lateral interception for a touchdown and the 31-24 final. Temple Coach Al Golden's succinct analysis was: “All the old-time Temple people, they know. A minute fifty left, fumble the snap, and there's 250,000 alumni who shake their heads and say, here they go again."

Al, a Class of '63 alum was more than shaking his head.