One could be forgiven for not taking the Penn State women's soccer team's comments about the difficulty of the Big Ten seriously. As sports fans, we've been brought up on coaches and athletes playing up the other team under any circumstance (see: Paterno, Joe).

So when sophomore forward Tiffany Weimer says that the team has a lot to prove to the rest of the Big Ten and coach Paula Wilkins adds that "every Big Ten team is going to present a problem," the knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss it as coach speak.

After all, heading into the season the Nittany Lions were 63-10-6 in Big Ten play since the team's inception. They have five straight regular season conference titles and haven't finished lower than third in team history. The Lions' 23 NCAA tournament games are the most in the conference and their 15-8 record in those games is far and away the best. Only Michigan can boast a winning record in the tournament, though just barely at 7-6. It would be an understatement to say that Penn State has dominated the Big Ten.

But despite all of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it turns out Wilkins was right. The Big Ten is better than advertised.

Over the weekend, the Lions lost at Purdue 3-1, their first loss to the Boilermakers in five games. Two days later, the Lions were forced to hold off Indiana in a 2-1 victory in Bloomington.

Granted, the Lions didn't play their best games over the weekend -- Wilkins would be one of the first people to admit that. Still, the games very much legitimized Wilkins' assertions that Big Ten teams would challenge her squad, especially on the road.

There were signs of this improvement even last year. Though the Lions again romped through their schedule, going 9-1 in conference play, Illinois scored four second half goals in the first round of the Big Ten tournament to upset the Lions 4-3. Also in 2002, the Big Ten sent a conference record six teams to the NCAA tournament, with three of those schools -- Michigan State, Ohio State and Purdue -- making their first appearance.

Normally, the Big Ten doesn't get mentioned in a conversation about top collegiate soccer conferences -- women's or men's, for that matter. The ACC is at or near the top thanks in part to North Carolina's über-dynasty. The success of teams from the Pac-10 and West Coast Conference, which features defending national champion Portland, also dwarfs the accomplishments of the Big Ten.

This low national opinion of the Big Ten is most evident when it comes time to hand out seeds for the NCAA tournament. Last year, despite going 15-3-1 heading into the tournament, the Lions were forced to travel to Maryland for the first two rounds, even though they had already beaten the 12-7-1 Terrapins earlier in the season. The Lions were the better team and the results on the field proved it, but Penn State doesn't play in the ACC and Maryland does.

While the Lions and their coaches have and will always hold the Big Ten in high regard, the rest of the country may gradually be coming around as well.

Ohio State is ranked No. 12 in the latest NSCAA/adidas rankings and is the only team to defeat No. 5 Virgina, a perennial NCAA tournament participant. Purdue has moved up to No. 21 after beating the Lions while Illinois is now in the receiving-votes category. Michigan State, Wisconsin and Northwestern are all rated in the Great Lakes regional top ten.

The Big Ten will probably never reach the height of the ACC when it comes to collegiate soccer, but that's not an especially realistic goal. The conference is showing marked improvement over a relatively short period of time and may soon establish itself among the upper-tier leagues.

And then there won't be any question that the Big Ten will give teams problems.