Isn't it nice to be at a football school again? Isn't it great to be at a place where even a traditional juggernaut like Nebraska can come and get dominated and basically embarrassed in every aspect of a football game? How great is it to not be asking whether the Penn State football team will win tomorrow, but by what margin?

There's no way a resurgent powerhouse team like Penn State can lose to a team like Louisiana Tech from a school in a backwater town (Ruston, La.) that you couldn't find on a map with a magnifying glass, is there?

I mean, when you think Penn State, you think of a powerhouse. You think of Joe Paterno, Linebacker U and national championships. Sure, that was gone for a few years, but they just mauled Nebraska, so all of that's back. When you think of Louisiana Tech, you think of crawfish, the bayou and four-toothed rednecks speaking with a Cajun accent and a Creole dialect that are totally unintelligible. The Bulldogs are so country that travelling to the big city of Boise, Idaho, for the Humanitarian Bowl presented a culture clash for them.

The last time the Bulldogs came up to Beaver Stadium and played in front of 100,000 people in 2000, they were carved up and shredded in a 67-7 win by what may have been one of the worst Nittany Lion football teams in the Paterno era. When they get up here and see the new swarming Lions defense and their new-fangled offense that would make the heads of even the most intelligent defensive coordinators spin, they're going to turn around and run home to mama. If they can't, they'll spend the whole game praying that the money the athletic department gets for allowing their football team to serve as a sacrificial lamb to a powerhouse will be enough to pay for the necessary medical bills after the game.

Penn State is a powerhouse. Louisiana Tech is a WAC school. Let's get this game over with, see if the Lions can break 100, and get on to the Iowa game next Saturday.

Not so fast.

For everyone that thinks the transitive property of mathematics applies to college football and that if the Cornhuskers are a top-10 team and the Lions can beat them by 33 they can beat everyone else that's ranked lower than them by even more, the following statement might come as a shock. The Lions have a lot of reasons to be worried about a loss this week.

One of those reasons is the classic letdown theory, that if a team wins a really big game that it isn't supposed to win, the next week becomes anti-climatic, the team is emotionally drained, cocky and it doesn't work as hard.

However, what worries them even more is that Louisiana Tech, as unknown as it is, is a good football team, and has hung with teams like Miami, Auburn and Alabama before. They may match up better with the Lions than either one of the teams Penn State's played so far. That includes, of course, the mighty 'Huskers.

The Bulldogs like to throw the ball around. Correction, they live for doing it. Last year, starting quarterback Luke McCown went to the air 521 times. That's an average of over 43 times per game. He once went to the air 72 times in a game. You can't even throw that much in a Playstation game.

The junior signal caller is pretty good at it too. He was one of the top high school quarterbacks in the country, and if he were playing for one of the big schools that recruited him, he'd be a legitimate Heisman candidate. If you're wondering why a team that passes a lot would make the Lions worry so much, consult the 27-24 win over Central Florida.

Golden Knights quarterback Ryan Schneider threw for 345 yards and a touchdown against the Lions, finding gaps in the Lions zone, and hitting quick slant pat-

terns. The Bulldogs offense is more wide open, and Schneider isn't half the quarterback McCown is, so if there are still holes in the Lions defense, McCown will find them.

The Bulldogs have more balance than the Golden Knights as well. Last week, running back Joe Smith rushed for 177 yards against Tulsa. They might not be the strongest defensive team, but they will probably still get the Lions in a shootout.

"They're going to score no matter who is on defense," Penn State assistant head coach Fran Ganter said. "They're going to come in here, they are good, and they can beat us. They're going to score points, we have to score points."

And if the new Penn State offense isn't as good as it looks, the days of crushing every small-conference team that comes around will be gone for a little while longer.