STATE COLLEGE, PA. ? The way Joe Paterno sees it, his team could be playing for a bowl spot if not for a couple of plays.

Perhaps, but what he and the Nittany Lions are going through this season is far worse than just a run of bad luck.

One of college football’s greatest coaches is struggling through the toughest stretch of his career, and his future in Happy Valley is being debated as never before.

Many Penn State fans believe it’s time for the 76-year-old Paterno to retire, and they’re not showing up for games like they used to. The coach hears the cries, but he isn’t about to give in.

He points to a missed block against Minnesota, a blown call against Ohio State, and a pass deflected into the arms of a Northwestern receiver as bad breaks that doomed Penn State (2-8, 0-6 Big Ten Conference) this season.

“When you have been in it as long as I have been in it and you have had some good luck and you have some bad luck, you can’t sit around and moan about it. That’s the way it goes,” Paterno said. “We have just had a little bad luck, but it will turn one of these days.”

Paterno’s 338 victories place him second among the winningest coaches in major-college football. He won national championships in 1982 and ’86, and finished unbeaten and untied five times. His teams have won 20 of 31 bowl games, and Paterno is the only coach who has won at the Orange, Cotton, Sugar, Fiesta and Rose bowls.

But that unmatched legacy stands in stark contrast to Penn State’s more recent past, which has been marred by trouble on and off the field. Seven current or former players have been arrested or cited since March, and many accused Paterno of lowering his standards when he allowed Anwar Phillips to play in last year’s Capital One Bowl after an alleged sexual assault on campus. Phillips was expelled from the university for two semesters, but was acquitted in court.