Apparently, Joe Paterno isn’t too impressed by the Big House’s home-field advantage. After all, it doesn’t have "Zombie Nation", like Beaver Stadium, "Jump Around", like Camp Randall, or clips from “300,” like Spartan Stadium.

“I don't think Michigan Stadium is a tough place to play,” the 82-year-old Penn State coach said at his Tuesday press conference. “They tell me they've restructured it a little bit so that the crowd is a little bit more involved in it. The way it used to be … the crowd was kinda out from you. I don't think it was a particularly difficult place to play.”

Well, then, how does he account for his team's woes in Ann Arbor?

Since joining the Big Ten in 1990, the Nittany Lions (2-1 Big Ten, 6-1 overall) have won just twice in Ann Arbor — their last coming in 1996, with a five-game losing skid since.

Instead of the gameday atmosphere, Paterno pointed to a few specific, game-changing moments that could attribute to the lack of success in the Big House.

He brought up the 2002 game, which featured the first overtime in Michigan Stadium history.

On Penn State’s last possession in regulation, Nittany Lion receiver Tony Johnson was ruled out-of-bounds on a controversial third-down catch — a call that was later proved wrong by video replays. That meant Penn State was forced to punt on the next play. But challenges and reviews were not yet part of the game.

The Wolverines (1-2, 5-2) eventually won the game 27-24 in overtime, but Penn State fans still talk about the referees’ blown call. And even Penn State’s official athletics website, gopsusports.com, griped about the call.

“One can only wonder what (quarterback) Zack Mills could have done with 40 seconds and two timeouts remaining,” the site’s game recap pondered.

And then there was 2005.

“The kid from western Pennsylvania runs that kickoff back when we probably shouldn't have kicked the ball to him,” Paterno said Tuesday. “I blame myself on that.”

That kid, of course, was Steve Breaston, who is currently averaging more than 80 receiving yards a game for the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. In 2005, with Penn State up by four points and 53 seconds left on the clock, Breaston took the kickoff back to midfield. That set up Chad Henne’s memorable last-second slant touchdown pass to Mario Manningham.

It has become one of the greatest games in recent Michigan history, and it must have stung deep for Paterno.

The eighth-ranked Nittany Lions were undefeated and poised for a national championship run. The Wolverines, who had lost the Little Brown Jug for the first time in 19 years the week before, would have had their worst record through seven games in almost 40 years with a loss.

“That's as wild a game as I've ever been in. Just unbelievable," then-Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said after the upset win.

Although he briefly mentioned the two incidents — and Penn State fans still mumble about a referee bias in the Big House — Paterno says the past is the past, and his team is focused on the task at hand.

“We (don’t) think about what's happened there before,” Paterno said. “What's happened there before, we can't do anything about that. We just got to go out and have a good week of practice, try to get a little better, be alert about anything we may get from them and go out there and play hard.”

After all, it’s Michigan vs. Penn State, two of the most storied programs in the history of college football, and Paterno thinks that should be enough to get his team hyped.

“I think you've got to be awfully careful when you start with ‘extra motivation,’ ” Paterno said. “If we need extra motivation to go out and play a game as important as this one is against a team with the tradition and the character and the coaching … they're doing a heck of a job this year.”