It's amazing how much things have changed for Penn State football since last fall.

Last Halloween, the football team egged the collective consciousness of the Penn State Nation by coming up short against Ohio State yet again, losing 21-10 in Columbus on Oct. 30.

It was the Nittany Lions' fifth loss in an soul-sucking six game skid that wouldn't be ended until amazingly, miraculously, unbelievably, Penn State got up the gumption to stop mighty Indiana four straight times on the goal line in the waning moments in Bloomington.

The win was hailed as a breakthrough, despite the fact that Indiana was... well... Indiana. But in a season like the one Penn State had in 2004, any win is a good win.

Which makes the lukewarm reaction to Penn State's win yesterday all the more interesting.

It would seem as though any win, especially one that moved the Lions within two games of their first Big Ten Championship since 1994 would be appreciated in Happy Valley. But admit it: you were struck more by the ridiculous amount of ridiculousness that took place Saturday afternoon than you were by Penn State's victory.

Honestly, can you ever remember a more absurd Big Ten football game?

The punting game alone read off the charts on the scale of unintentional comedy.

I'm sure that none of you saw any humor in Calvin Lowry's fumble that could have proven to be incredibly costly, but his next kick return was absolutely priceless.

First, he runs up to catch the high kick, only to realize that it is about to fly over his head. Anyone who has ever watched a little leaguer learning to catch fly balls could recognize the "uh-oh" moment when he turned tail and headed back the other direction.

Then he recovers nicely by making a Willie Mays style, over-the-shoulder catch.

Now Lowry turns 180 degrees and heads upfield, cutting to his right and, suddenly, the seas part and it looks like he has space for a big return.

I promise you that at that exact moment when Lowry cut through the hole and into a sliver of daylight, at least 43,515 of the 109,467 people in attendance looked at the person next to them and said something along the lines of, "this is not happening."

Then Lowry got smacked and order was restored to the universe and at least half of those 43,515 people burst out laughing.

If that wasn't ridiculous enough for you, Jeremy Kapinos continued the special teams hilarity by following his 19-yard, first-quarter, shank-job with a nullified 99-yard kick later in the game.

Seriously. Ninety-nine yards. The kick didn't count because Penn State somehow could not seem to get the snap off in time, causing a delay of game penalty. But had the kick counted, it would have been a good 25 yards over the head of Purdue's returner and rolled dead at the 1-yard line.

Of course, forced to try and catch lightning in a bottle again, Kapinos hit one that ended up giving Purdue the ball at the Penn State 42.

Kapinos has a huge leg, don't get me wrong, but he could stand on his own goal line from now until Christmas and not get another one to die 99 yards away. Actually, forget Christmas, he could stand on the field at Beaver Stadium and kick until the NCAA institutes a playoff system -- and that ain't happening any time soon.

And that just was in the kicking game.

Admit it, you chuckled to yourself no matter how frustrated you were when it took Penn State six-freakin'-plays to score from the Purdue 2, and you probably laughed out loud when Joe Paterno got obliterated by 6-foot-3, 260-pound defensive lineman Jim Shaw.

It's guaranteed that Penn State bettors laughed all the way to the bank when the Lions garbage touchdown pushed them over the 15-point spread.

Penn State football fans haven't had much to laugh about the last few seasons unless they have a pretty sick sense of humor, but Saturday's win was basically the football equivalent of the Nittany Lion and two Blue Banders doing the dance from "Thriller."

Hilarious, but a success nonetheless.