Maybe we should have begun to suspect at noontime, when Lee Corso donned the Lion head at the end of the ESPN College GameDay show in front of the Bryce Jordan Center and put the “Kiss of Death” on Penn State.

Then Mother Nature opened up her skies in mid-afternoon to start a drenching downpour that ruined thousands of tailgates around Beaver Stadium and doomed the fans to a miserable soggy night in the stands.

We should have become leery, when the continuing rainfall prevented the Blue Band from taking the field, so the soaking wet fans could not even enjoy the always stirring pre-game and halftime performances that contribute to the “Greatest Show in College Sports.”

We should have begun to worry, when the rain helped neutralize the effect of the all-stadium Whitehouse that has helped the Lions intimidate opponents in previous big games.

But when it started so magnificently with a picture-perfect, 79-yard touchdown pass on the Lions’ first play from scrimmage that set the steel stadium rocking a la the fourth quarter against Ohio State in 2005 … or the trouncing of Notre Dame in 2007 … or Derrick Williams’ 94-yard fourth-quarter kickoff return for a TD against Illinois just one year ago … or the 32-point, second-half outburst against Michigan in previous Penn State White Outs, it seemed like this was Penn State’s chance to prove to a prime-time national TV audience, as well as the 109,316 in the Beav, that the 2009 Lions could run with the big dogs in Florida and Texas and Alabama.

In addition, that was quickly followed by the longest Lion scoring drive since Penn State joined the Big Ten Conference after Nick Sukay’s interception of Ricky Stanzi’s third pass attempt.

State’s offense methodically marched down the field for 10 minutes and 17 seconds on a 20-play drive that included four third-down conversions and one fourth-down conversion, while the home team built up a 147-40 total offense advantage, a 104-8 passing yardage margin and a 4/6 to 0/2 third-down conversion difference.

But there was a premonition when we couldn’t complete our fifth third-down situation and had to settle for three points instead of seven.

Our suspicions should have grown just a few minutes later, when quarterback Daryll Clark was sacked in the end zone for the first safety Penn State has given up in five years.

And those concerns should have increased when the same Daniel Murray who booted the Lions’ national championship hopes into oblivion last year kicked a 41-yard field goal to give the Hawkeyes their first offensive score five minutes before halftime.

But yet our defense maintained its tradition of not allowing a touchdown in the first half. And we still had a 10-5 lead going into the locker room, knowing Iowa had to kick off to us after the intermission.

We continued to ignore the obvious, when Iowa’s Shaun Prater intercepted Clark’s pass at the IA-24 to stop our first second-half drive deep in enemy territory; and when Collin Wagner had a 48-yard field goal attempt on our second drive fall just a few feet under the crossbar.

But then A.J. Wallace came up with State’s second interception of a tipped pass with 1:14 left in the third quarter, which ended with the Lions still clinging tenaciously to a five-point lead.

Then came the killer.

During State’s first possession of the final frame, Hawkeye defensive end Adrian Clayborn smashed right through Penn State’s protection for the first punt block ever against Jeremy Boone, whose previous 109 kicks had been untouched. To add insult to injury, the ball took a perfect bounce into Clayborn’s hands, and he galloped 53 yards to the Hawks’ first touchdown and the visitors’ first lead at 11-10.

Now, for the first time this season, our suspicions turned to fear that the dreaded Hawkeyes would unmask the Lions as pretenders to the lofty No. 5 national ranking—even before two more scores raised the final margin of victory to 21-10.

As State fell apart in the fourth quarter, giving up three more turnovers, the outcome confirmed the concerns we had when the Lions got complacent and couldn’t score in the second half against Akron, after building up a 31-0 first-half lead.

It validated the worries we had about our rushing attack when Syracuse held us to an average of just 2.2 yards on 35 carries, even though our passing attack carried us to a 28-7 victory.

And it verified the skepticism of fans about the quality of our opponents, as we breezed through a 31-6 triumph over Temple.

“It was a team loss,” a dejected Coach Joe Paterno said in his post-mortem. “We just got licked.”

“What we do after this will determine what kind of football team we are,” concluded a somber Co-captain Clark after the game.

Ohio State has run up a 6-3 advantage over Penn State since 2000. And it took the urging of a 2008 Homecoming crowd to knock the Michigan monkey off the Lions’ back for the first time this decade.

But Iowa is the team that has owned Penn State in this millennium.

The Hawkeyes haven’t needed an extra two seconds on the clock or a controversial call on a sideline catch to win seven of eight contests against the Lions, who usually had what was considered superior talent.

The Hawks have simply played hard-nosed football and outslugged the Lions, especially in Beaver Stadium, where they have won two overtime games, plus a 6-4 Penn State Homecoming “thriller” in 2004, before Saturday night’s masterful upset.

Coach Kirk Ferentz and his staff have drawn up and the Hawkeyes have executed game plans that have stifled and frustrated the Nittany Lions.

It is hard to imagine why unbeaten Iowa entered Beaver Stadium unranked, except that it didn’t win its opening game against unheralded Northern Iowa until the last play. But after impressing the TV viewers of ESPN’s top game of the week, the Hawks jumped clear up to No. 13—two places above a falling Penn State—in the AP poll and No. 17—four spots below the Nittany Lions—in the coaches’ poll.

Last November’s triumph over the Lions started the Hawkeyes on the nation’s third-longest current winning streak, which they raised to eight on Saturday.

Iowa won the battle in the trenches both ways. Their veteran offensive line gave Stanzi enough time to complete the passes he needed to drive his team to its second straight upset of Penn State. And it opened enough holes for freshmen tailbacks Adam Robinson and Brandon Wegher to run for 163 yards and the victory-sealing touchdown.

Defensively, the Hawkeyes stifled the Lions’ running attack and pressured Clark, the Big Ten’s passing yardage leader, into three interceptions and several misfires for the lowest completion percentage of his career (37.5).

Nearly 40 percent of his 198 passing yards came on his 79-yard TD bomb to Powell on the Lions’ first play. A career-long for Clark, this play belied the fact that the 2008 All-Big Ten quarterback was about to have the worst game of his career.

But as often happens in football, when a team gets such an easy score early, it cannot sustain the momentum for a full 60 minutes. Though victimized on State’s first play, the Iowa defense rose up to win the game for the visitors, with four turnovers, a safety and a blocked punt for a touchdown.

Penn State’s defensive captain and leading tackler in 2009, Sean Lee, who missed all of last season with a torn ACL, spent Saturday the same way he spent the 2008 season—on the sidelines wearing a headset and a knee brace and appearing to be another assistant coach, after spraining his knee last week against Temple.

But All-Big Ten linebacker Navorro Bowman got back on the field for the first time since the first quarter of the opening game against Akron and joined Josh Hull in leading the Lions with 13 tackles apiece. Bani Gbadyu filled in for the injured Lee and hobbled Nathan Stupar and contributed seven tackles, as the Penn State defense played well enough to win.

But the heretofore prolific Lion offense could not generate another threat, let alone another point, in the final 46 minutes of the contest.

An uncommon rash of penalties crippled Penn State in the second quarter, though one of them came on a bad call, when Sukay was blocked into the Iowa punter, but the referee dropped his hankie any way, giving Iowa a first down and new life.

The third quarter was a stalemate, as the teams traded interceptions, but the final frame belonged to the visitors, who ended up scoring all of their points in front of the white-clad and usually raucous Penn State students in the south end zone.

“I heard stories about how loud it could be,” the Hawks’ defensive end Broderick Binns said after the game. “Today, we saw how quiet it could be.”

It was Binns who beat the Lions’ right tackle DeOn’tae Pannell two plays in a row to dump Evan Royster for a two-yard loss to the PS-2 then sacked Clark in the end zone, forcing a fumble that Lion guard Johnnie Troutman fell on to limit the miscue to a safety rather than an Iowa touchdown. Redshirt senior Nerraw McCormack replaced Pannell at tackle the rest of the game but didn’t fare much better.

Next week, the Lions will get their first road test at Illinois, facing a dangerous team that will probably be even meaner after getting trounced, 30-0, at Ohio State Saturday. The 1-2 Illini, who earlier lost to Missouri, 37-9, before beating Illinois State, 45-17, need a victory over Penn State a la 2007 to prevent their season from going into a tailspin. The same may be true for the Lions in their second consecutive contest to be televised by ABC/ESPN at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time.

For the glory,