Michigan State quarterback Drew Stanton has said, "You can't stop the spread. The spread stops itself." Yet, already this season, the Penn State football team managed to stop three teams who run college football's "it" scheme.

Central Michigan, Northwestern and Purdue all tried to keep the Nittany Lions defense off-balance with multiple receiver looks, and the Spartans offense, when it's chugging along, could be the best spread offense the Lions have faced.

"We played the spread not once, not twice, but numerous times, so it's nothing new," cornerback Alan Zemaitis said.

"The spread offense, it's a really good plan of attack, and we've played it before, but you have to be disciplined. You have to be very physical and swarm to the ball."

That may be, but the Lions have never seen a spread quite like this. The Spartans are fifth in the country in total offense, averaging 506.9 yards per game, eighth in passing efficiency and 14th in scoring offense, averaging 35 points per game.

With an offense like Michigan State's, defenses are continually guessing which weapon will get the ball next and that limits the schemes a defensive coordinator can use.

"You can't really play a lot of man to a spread offense because with all the wide receivers there just aren't enough cover people to play the receivers, and you have to play a lot of zone," Zemaitis said.

Even when a defense sits back in zone coverage, the Spartans can still find the cracks.

"With all the routes they run with it, it creates a lot of windows in between zones," Zemaitis said.

"When an offense gets hot, they hot. Like he said, the only thing that can stop it is itself. You have to physically dominate the game if you can because there's a lot of finesse in the spread offense. You can slow [Stanton] down that way and force him to make a lot of mistakes."

Stanton doesn't make a lot of mistakes, though.

He's only thrown eight interceptions all season, while throwing 21 touchdowns and rushing for four.

Other Spartans though, have succumbed to the curse of mediocrity that often strikes talented Michigan State teams.

"We have to go out there with the idea that we are looking at athletes and not guys that, maybe, put the ball on the ground or have a field goal blocked because they only had 10 guys on the field as they did against Ohio State in the last play of the game and that kind of thing," Lions coach Joe Paterno said.

The Spartans have struggled on both sides of the ball for the past two weeks, losing both games when a win would have garnered bowl eligibility.

After starting off the season 4-0, including a road win at Notre Dame, the Spartans have gone 1-5, but the Lions are still wary of the threat Stanton's spread offense poses.

"They're still as dangerous as they were at the beginning of the season," Zemaitis said.

"I'm not sure what the reasons are, but whatever those reasons are, they're going to come out as a totally different team the last two weeks."