Never has a youth movement toward tomorrow looked so stale. Check the label on the 2010 season, expiration date: Oct. 9.

Are we headed back to the early 2000s, the dark ages, a futile program? Can’t say after just one game, especially with a patchwork defense. But you’re starting to see signs of real trouble, players’ faces puckering up, being forced to swallow the sour milk the coaching staff has refrigerated for years.

Predictable, conservative play-calling and an egregious offensive line that can’t knock anyone off the ball does not bode well for an offense. Soft zone with slow linebackers hung out to dry in pass coverage and a unit absent of playmakers won’t do an offense any favors.

Forget being out-schemed, out-manned, out-executed. Penn State is defeating itself, its staff losing its players that won’t believe the boring, outdated propaganda, that see the restrictions on their talent.

And it’s ruining the psyche of this young, fragile team. Players are discreetly questioning coaching, they feel the shackle and bolt of unimaginative play calls and they’re losing patience, desperately reaching for a reason to care when a coaching staff handicaps their potential.

Twice Illinois cornerback Jack Ramsey fumbled a punt, which Penn State recovered deep in Illini territory. On the first chance, creativity budded for a second with a shotgun pitch to Silas Redd that let him operate in space and pick up eight yards. On second down, running coordinator Galen Hall calls for Redd up the middle. No gain. Third down, passing coordinator Jay Paterno has Rob Bolden float one up to Brett Brackett in the back right corner of the end zone.

That wasn’t the worst of it.

On its next drive, after Penn State made one of its seven first downs on the day, Stephfon Green rushed for six yards, bringing up 2nd-and-4 at the Illinois 45. Bolden had his next pass batted down at the line of scrimmage. On third down, Bolden checked down to Devon Smith crossing over the middle one yard short of the first down marker. On fourth down, when rolling Bolden out gives you the option to throw or run, Green carries straight into a logjam of bodies for a turnover on downs.

Then, you knew. This is not getting turned around.

Players popped in a videotape of Penn State history Friday after squad meetings that highlighted a slew of its best players such as LaVar Arrington and Jack Ham to bookend a week of practice that started with a players-only meeting Monday.

Stephon Morris titled the video “Penn State swagger.”

I polled players on what they saw in those former players that they aren’t seeing in themselves.

The reviews are in.

Candid senior right guard Stefen Wisniewski: “They just got a little bit more desire than we have. Desire to just smack somebody, to make a play. With the ball carrier, just a desire to gotta refuse to get tackled. Fighting for everything you got to get in the end zone. For linemen, it’s fighting for everything you got to stay on blocks.

“It’s just this much on every play. Every guy, this much more. It adds up to be a lot.”

Senior linebacker Chris Colasanti, who has played the last two games with a broken hand: “I feel that those guys are no different. We have pride wearing the blue and white. We have heart, and we have the intensity of going out there and playing good defense and offense, and besides those small mistakes, those are the things we have to correct.”

Morris: “Lack of intensity. We gotta tackle. We have to tackle. We have to strip the ball out. We just need to help the offense out. Anything we can do just to help the offense, anything.”

What a young team needs is guidance, leaders. Penn State has none, including at the top, and cute little motivational videos can’t fix a program corroding from the core.

“We’re not making any progress,” said Paterno, slouched in his chair, legs crossed. “I thought by this stage we would be a pretty good football team. I didn’t think we would be great, but I thought we would be pretty good but we’re not. We’re not getting any better, and that’s the discouraging part.”

The admission was never clearer, and you’ve seen what a couple of 11-2 seasons masked.

Swagger and 83 years old don’t go well together.