Clean-up duty before practice

After cleaning up the stadium, the Nittany Lions planned to start preparations for Notre Dame.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — The blue team school buses lined up Sunday morning outside quiet Beaver Stadium. Tailback Austin Scott and No. 17 Penn State had unfinished business before they could shift their focus to Notre Dame.

Stadium clean-up duty started Sunday for the Nittany Lions (1-0), part of a team-wide punishment from coach Joe Paterno after several players were involved in an off-campus fight in April.

Even Paterno stopped by for a bit, though he wasn’t about to let photographers snap pictures of the sanitation crew.

“But for me to go out there and take a broom ... pictures will be all over and you won’t even know the kids did it,” Paterno said Saturday after Penn State routed Florida International, 59-0. “It’ll be Paterno, back to where he should be, sweeping.”

Video work

JoePa was likely headed to the video room to get ready for Saturday’s highly anticipated matchup against the Fighting Irish.

There were a lot of highlights to make Paterno smile.

The defense slowed FIU’s offense to a crawl. Penn State quarterback Anthony Morelli burned the Golden Panthers for three touchdowns and a career-best 295 yards.

After a sluggish start, the running game took off, too, though no go-to guy emerged. That role was played to perfection last season by tailback Tony Hunt, now in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Instead, three backs shared the load. Rodney Kinlaw had 66 yards and a touchdown, while Evan Royster had 70 and another score.

Scott, thought to be the favorite to start at tailback, had 46 yards and two touchdowns in a game the Nittany Lions had well in hand by halftime, leading 24-0.

Scott came to Penn State five years ago with impressive credentials — he ran for state records of 3,853 yards and 53 touchdowns in his senior year of high school.

Left behind

But injuries and a couple of off-field issues left him behind Hunt on the depth chart over the last three seasons. Scott redshirted last year following an ankle injury.

Next up for Penn State is Notre Dame and a Fighting Irish defense that allowed a career-high 196 yards and two touchdowns to tailback Tashard Choice in a 33-3 home loss to Georgia Tech.

After a couple of hours of cleaning up the stadium Sunday, the Nittany Lions planned to ice down any aches and pains and relax before starting preparations today for the Irish.

“We definitely will be prepared, and make sure we are paying attention at practice,” Scott said. “Fine-tune everything so that we are crisp when it comes to the game.”