Dec. 29, 1999 SportsLine wire reports

SAN ANTONIO -- Penn State won the Alamo Bowl as a sendoff for one of its coaches.

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Texas A&M had hoped to do the same thing for one of its own.

The game was the last for A&M quarterbacks coach Ray Dorr, who is being reassigned to an administrative position because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

The 24-0 loss to Penn State was painful, but quarterback Randy McCown tried to put it into perspective.

"It's just been tough to handle," McCown said. "But this doesn't compare anything to what a guy on our coaching staff is going through. The sun will come up tomorrow and I just really wish we could have seen coach Dorr out with a win."

Added defensive back Jason Webster: "We wanted to go out with a victory. But you have to take the bitter with the sweet and we went all out."

Texas A&M's sixth bowl loss of the 1990s was its first by shutout since a 20-0 defeat against USC in the 1975 Liberty Bowl.

The Aggies opened the season ranked seventh nationally and climbed to fifth before losing 21-19 to Texas Tech. Then, over a 15-day period, Texas A&M suffered lopsided losses of 51-6 to Oklahoma and 37-0 to Nebraska.

"Obviously, we fell short of some of the goals we had," wide receiver Matt Bumgardner said. "We had some injuries in the offensive line. But A&M is the kind of school that's going to be there, battling every year."

Although the Aggies rank sixth among major colleges with 94 victories in the decade, its only bowl victory was 22-20 in the 1995 Alamo Bowl over Michigan.

"If we had won half of these bowls, we'd be seen a lot differently," A&M coach R.C. Slocum said. "And, maybe, we'd be a lot different."