They're not this good.

That's what Penn State football coach Joe Paterno likes to say about his team when it wins big, and, in fact, he used his favorite saying after Saturday's 49-0 thrashing of poor Northwestern.

So, amidst ever lingering questions about the fairness of Big Ten play, the bigger question remains: How good are the Penn State Nittany Lions?

The answer, maybe, will come next week in Columbus, Ohio, when the No. 18 Lions (5-2, 2-2 Big Ten) take on Ohio State, the No. 4 team in the country.

Games against Iowa and Wisconsin and Michigan were supposed to tell us how good Penn State is, and now, because of questionable calls and inconsistency, there is only confusion.

But about the Wildcats: Paterno would say they aren't as bad as they think they are when they lose, but even if they're half as bad as they looked against Penn State, they're pretty darn bad.

Penn State had some nice stories, like senior tailback Larry Johnson's explosive performance. He broke the school record for yards in a game with 257 on 23 carries in basically one half of the game. (The old record was 256, set by Curt Warner against Syracuse in 1981.) Most of the yards came on isolation plays up the middle in which Johnson looked like a river running through a delta. He could have gone any number of ways.

In the first half, he controlled the game and gained 191 yards and scored a touchdown. He was patient, waited for blocks and changed direction mid-stride as well as any back in the country.

Johnson took the opening handoff of the second half and was immediately stuffed by a Northwestern defense that had made adjustments to stop him. He gained only a yard. Two plays later, needing two yards for a third-down conversion, Johnson ran through the Northwestern defense and went 60 yards. He set the record with a six-yard touchdown run on the next play, his last carry of the game.

Johnson runs angry all the time. Saturday, after a week of turmoil, the rest of the team finally reached his level.

"He's a little moody sometimes," Paterno said, "but so is my wife."

There was other good news for the Lions. Quarterback Zack Mills didn't get beat up and didn't have to do much. He made a beautiful throw down the right sideline to Tony Johnson for a 40-yard touchdown, which accounted for almost half of his throwing yards on the day (94).

Also, more than 50 Penn State players saw playing time. It used to be that Paterno would get his young players into the game during the several inevitable blowouts the Lions had each year. That doesn't happen all that much anymore, not with the popularity of the spread offense. But on Saturday, the young kids played and played well.

Stopping the spread offense was key. The Lions stayed in a nickel formation almost all day and locked up on the Wildcat receivers. Once again, converted wide receiver Anwar Phillips showed that he has the natural ability to be one of the best cover corners Penn State has seen in a while.

But, as cornerback Bryan Scott said of Northwestern: "They had a new quarterback and that caused some chemistry problems."

Unfortunately, that may be the real story of the day. It's tough to tell anything about Penn State when it beats a Northwestern team that would have had trouble tackling Larry Johnson if he hopped down the field.

The Wildcats looked like the hapless little sister of the Big Ten that many Penn State fans believe them to be (even though the Wildcats have won two more titles than the Lions since 1993.)

"I'm sure that he's [Larry Johnson] a good football player and they're a good football team, but I'm disappointed in the way we played," Northwestern coach Randy Walker said.

Yes, Penn State responded well to a devastating loss for the second time this season.

Yes, the Lions built momentum heading into Columbus.

All last week, Penn State players talked about how Joe Paterno was telling them they needed to "punch somebody in the mouth." On Saturday, the Lions did just that.

But it's not very impressive when the target of the devastating upper-cut is the smallest kid on the playground -- or your little sister.