Judging by the analysis that I have heard from Penn State's armchair, or, as the case may be, bleacher quarterbacks in the wake of the Nittany Lions' definitive but unimpressive victory over South Florida on Saturday, nobody is particularly thrilled.

Sure, Penn State was maddeningly inconsistent on offense and failed to blow out the Bulls, but it seems to me that people may be a bit off the mark with how the Nittany Lions looked.

It's not so much that Penn State was bad.

It's just that the game itself was un-freakin-believably boring.

Chalk up Penn State's performance Saturday with The Black Crowes, a degree in accounting and the movie Dead Man Walking in the pantheon of the "mildly impressive but mind-numbingly boring."

Now I know what it feels like to cover Wisconsin football (Saturday's shoot-out against Bowling Green was an aberration).

If this were a baseball game, it would be a pitchers' duel, but not a good one. One where neither team can score but each scatter about nine hits. Call it a punters' duel.

A fellow writer in the press box summed up the situation best when he pointed out at halftime that, even though he was watching a 10-point game live, all he could think about was whether or not he'd make it home in time to catch the second half of Boise State vs. Georgia on TV.

But all joking aside, the only unit that was a real disappointment on Saturday was the offensive line.

Michael Robinson was far from spectacular, but really his statistics were not that bad.

He only ended up throwing 15 passes, completing nine of them, and, disregarding the three times he was sacked, he would have rushed for 75 yards.

The game itself was certainly closer than the team would have liked, but Penn State could have easily won 37-13 instead of 23-13, and really, what is the difference?

Robinson claims that if he doesn't fumble on the 11-yard line he would have made it to the end zone, and everybody in the stadium knew that if Derrick Williams had managed to hold on to Robinson's toss on the option, he could have skipped to the end zone.

If they hadn't fumbled, I guarantee that Penn State would have been deified in the media by everyone.

Every Sunday sports page from State College to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh would have screamed about how Penn State had "Restored the Roar" or something else just as kitschy.

My point is that none of this would have changed how Penn State actually played. Whether they won 37-13 or 23-13, they would still have given an adequate performance against a team that proved to be much more athletic than most people expected.

Penn State fans are upset because they were expecting a performance that more resembled Texas' 60-3 drubbing of Louisiana Lafayette. But how much do these games really matter?

This is not to say that Penn State played particularly well; they didn't. They just didn't play that badly, which still doesn't change the fact that the game bored me to tears.

Now excuse me, I'm going to take a nap. I'm still drowsy from Saturday.