On a cold and very forgettable day for Penn State fans, close to two years ago now, Michigan State all but lowered the coffin on arguably the worst Penn State football season ever.

It was Nov. 22, 2003, the last time the Nittany Lions visited East Lansing, Mich. The Lions came into the day with only three wins and eight losses to that point in the season, and this was the final game.

There would be no fourth victory.

The Lions scored the first three points that day. Going on the road within your conference and tallying the game's initial score is usually a good sign. Sadly enough, the Spartans would put up the next 41 points.

There was artificial turf on the Spartan Stadium surface; since then it has been replaced with grass. Zack Mills was at quarterback, Maurice Humphrey -- remember him? -- was at wide receiver. Humphrey scored the only Lions touchdown late in the fourth quarter. That was the last time the former Lions wide receiver would play collegiate football. It is just a bit of symbolism of how much things have changed.

Alan Zemaitis was there, too.

"It stayed with me a little bit," the senior cornerback said of the defeat. "I think it stayed with everybody, really. [This week] We're not talking about when we beat them last year, we're talking about how they beat us in East Lansing two years ago."

The downside to college football, unlike the National Football League, is the chances for revenge -- amongst active players -- must occur within a four to five-year period.

This season, the Lions have been dishing out payback to teams, media and doubters alike who'd written them off since the turn of this century.

"There's no personal things at stake this week," linebacker Tim Shaw said. "It's all about what we want to accomplish as a team."

The Lions have an opportunity to secure an automatic BCS bowl bid with a win, not to mention at least a share of the Big Ten title.

With a win, Michigan State is just trying to secure a bowl appearance, the same way it tried to a year ago when it entered Beaver Stadium and lost.

How ironic? The Lions had three wins coming into that game as well. The only difference is they would finish, this time, with a fourth in the win column. The Lions had just come off of a dramatic win at Indiana fueled by their now famous goal-line stand.

But the Spartans still didn't respect them, evident by the level of trash talking aimed in the Lions direction even before the game started.

The Lions should expect somewhat of a motivated Spartans team tomorrow. It

didn't take much for MSU to put the Lions away in East Lansing in 2003. The Spartans were far better, and the Lions knew it.

"We got handled. They flat out beat us," linebacker Paul Posluszny said. "We weren't a very good team back then, and they were very good. We have that in the back of our minds."

The fun part for the players is there are great things at stake tomorrow.

Bowl games, conference titles and respect. These things mean a lot more than most imagine, not to mention that a lot of players on both squads were recruited heavily by both teams.

Shaw is from the State of Michigan and was extremely close to being a Spartan himself.

He said he doesn't need too much motivation for this weekend's game with the Spartans, but a win certainly wouldn't hurt.

"I don't need any ammunition," Shaw said.

"But maybe I'll just flash a smile. And maybe a ring."