Louisiana Tech coach Jack Bicknell had seen this before. No, he had played it before.

It was 1982 and Bicknell was the center for Boston College and a midget named Doug Flutie was winging the ball all over the field.

"I remember that's when we threw for all those yards," he said Saturday.

All those yards, and yet the final score was 52-17 in favor of Penn State.

Flutie threw for 540 yards in '82. Bicknell's quarterback, Luke McCown, threw for 406 yards Saturday and the score was only a field goal off: Penn State 49, Louisiana Tech 17.

"I actually thought about that during the game," Bicknell said.

"I was hoping it wasn't going to quite turn out that way but I remember that game well. We were moving the ball well but we just couldn't stop them."

On Saturday, the Bulldogs simply could not get into the end zone.

"Good defense is if the other team doesn't score," Penn State defensive end Michael Haynes said.

"They can move the ball 99 yards, but if they don't get a score then we've played good defense."

By that standard, Penn State's defense was good. But La. Tech's offense was bad, too.

McCown forced a pass across his body and against traffic early in the third quarter and it ended up in the hands of linebacker Deryck Toles.

"I'm smart enough to know you don't throw across your body when you are rolling right," McCown said. "That's a fault of mine that I have to get over. I have enough confidence in my arm to think I can throw it through the eye of a needle."

It was small mistakes and missed opportunities that kept the Bulldogs from getting into end zone.

As for Penn State, the offense operated when it had to and got the job done.

Three times it started inside the red zone during the second half, and three times it scored touchdowns.

The Lions, once noted for machine-like efficiency, have not completely strayed from tactical perfection.

The offensive line, which isn't big by today's standards, routinely spreads the defense and opens holes. Rarely do you see any pancake blocks anymore.

"[It] wasn't as physical as I was expecting," Bulldogs linebacker Curtis Randle said.

"They finessed more than they were physical. That kind of caught me by surprise."

Penn State's longest drive of the second half was 52 yards and came with less than five minutes left in the game and mostly third-team players on the field. Other than that, the Lions fizzled.

So for all the talk of a new Penn State team, nothing much has changed.

This team causes turnovers, limits its own mistakes and capitalizes on chance.

Good, solid, Penn State football, done with a nod toward the changing game and basic fundamentals.

"[There] were some extremely physical guys out there and again, I mean, that's a great team," Bicknell said.

"All of this stuff works better against a lousier team."

The statistics make Penn State seem pretty lousy. But so did the statistics for the Boston College game in 1982, and that team went on to win a national championship.

Everything has changed, absolutely nothing's changed for the center with the midget Flutie from Boston College.

"I promise that I really feel like this is one of the top teams in the country," Bicknell said.

"I thought that watching them on tape, and I think that now after playing them."