The season starts on Saturday.
Yes, I know five Penn State games have already been played this season. I watched them all and have decent memories of doing so. Like you, I watched Nick Singleton explode into the national consciousness, Manny Diaz smother out-matched offenses with guile and aggression, and Sean Clifford … do what Sean Clifford does. I watched a team of Nittany Lions that looked, at times, very much like the .500ish group of the last two years and, at others, like a legitimate conference contender.
All of that was prelude. The only way that any of those games would have truly mattered is if Penn State had lost any of them. But they did not, so that they wiped out Auburn by more than most would have anticipated and subdued Central Michigan and Northwestern by a lot less than anticipated (not even Vegas can adequately predict which version of this team will show up on any given week), means the same as if they had defeated all five opponents 42-0 or 7-3.
