There are three ways for freshman college football players to see the field:

1. They replace an injured player
2. They get into a game that is well in-hand (or well out-of-hand)
3. They prove that they deserve to be there instead of an upperclassman

Penn State’s Class of 2022 continued to use those various entry points to Saturday’s 45-14 romp over a mostly hapless Indiana team, which illustrated both the hope for the Nittany Lions’ future and what makes their present a bit vexing.

The Nittany Lions’ offensive line was beaten up entering the game, with Olu Fashanu and Landon Tengwall left behind in State College with injuries. True freshman Drew Shelton started in place of Fashanu — a role he could find himself in on a more-permanent basis if Olu leaves for the NFL Draft — and accorded himself nicely, as did not-freshman-but-first-year-Nittany Lion JB Nelson, who replaced an injured Hunter Nourzad at guard on the first possession.

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The problem with fighting the champ, the heaviest-hitting of the heavyweights, is that you’re forever one punch away from disaster.

You could be ahead on points, you could have cut him, you could be executing your strategy to perfection, and you could be frustrating him, even as the later rounds tick by and the swell of the crowd grows around you.

But if he lands just one big swing, the whole fight changes.

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If last week’s game was a visit to the dental surgeon and next Saturday’s game a trip to the proctologist, Penn State’s Homecoming game against Minnesota was a metaphorical flu shot.

Some risk involved, if only a sore arm, but a picnic by comparison to the weeks surrounding it. And perhaps a chance to serve some benefit down the road.

Before one of the larger Beaver Stadium crowds in recent memory, the Nittany Lions broke open what had first appeared to be a close if not fantastically competitive game with an avalanche of second-half touchdowns. The end result meant nothing and it meant everything.

Allow me to elaborate.

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The worst-kept secret in college football is that there are the haves, and the have-nots, and that the gap between them seems more likely to expand than to contract.

One of the teams in Michigan Stadium moved a step closer toward cementing itself as a “have” on Saturday. The other left little doubt that, at least for the time being, it remains in the other category.

Penn State lost 41-17 to Michigan and the game was not that close. Read that sentence again for emphasis. The Nittany Lions won the turnover battle, did not give the ball away, and converted all of their red-zone opportunities — all key parts of the formula that had led to their 5-0 start.

And none of it mattered.

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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.

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Lip reading is an inexact science. But if you looked closely at Pat Fitzgerald during the telecast of Saturday’s game, it sure looked like Northwestern’s head coach was saying, “They’re going to have to play the whole game today” following the Wildcat touchdown that cut the Penn State lead to 14-7 with 2:10 left in the third quarter.

Indeed, the Nittany Lions had not really had to play four quarters of football since the opener at Purdue, having taken care of business early, to varying degrees, against Ohio, Auburn, and Central Michigan. And until a few minutes earlier, just before Jacob Gill’s 47-yard touchdown reception, Penn State appeared to have done enough to put this one to bed on the miserable sort of rainy November afternoon that arrived in State College on the first day of October.

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Typically, there are two ways a team responds from the sort of lopsided road win Penn State earned at Auburn last week when it plays its next game against inferior opposition.

1. Continue the momentum with sharp execution, big plays, physical dominance, or some combination of all of those things.
2. Play like everyone on the team, including the staff, had been out at the “bar” from Varsity Blues the night (and morning) before.

At home for a noon kick against a 1-2 Central Michigan team Saturday, the Nittany Lions did both during a sort-of-but-not-that-convincing 33-14 win.

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The scoreboard don’t care how, only how many.

Penn State’s 41-12 smackdown of Auburn in Jordan-Hare Stadium will turn some heads around the country, and will leave the hosts with just as much collective doubt as it will fill the visitors with collective confidence. James Franklin will preach “1-0” until he’s blue in the face, but he knows this win will be enjoyed by his players more than most and, in his private moments, you know he’s enjoying it, too.

Before we start measuring the Nittany Lions’ hat size for conference or national crowns, though, it’s important to look at how Penn State won this game over an opponent that looked very much like it could have a long season in the SEC ahead.

Penn State played exactly the way a team needs to play to win in a hostile environment. The Lions took care of the football, took advantage of their red-zone opportunities and largely capitalized on their opponents’ mistakes. But although they were dominant on the scoreboard—particularly in the second half—they weren’t dominant on the field for much of the game.

Only when they needed to be.

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Love was in the air for the Nittany Lions in their home opener against Ohio, in the form of a feathery 32-yard touchdown pass from rookie quarterback Drew Allar to rookie receiver Omari Evans, and it was on the ground, in the form of 179 yards and two big-play tuddies from freshman Nick Singleton. A dozen true freshmen saw the field for the home team in a mostly clean, well-rounded 46-10 pounding of an overmatched MAC squad, but Allar and Singleton were the darlings of the crowd, and they underscored what has been an inescapable theme of the season:

Now that Penn State has found love, what are they gonna do with it?

This was the game plan James Franklin had talked about executing all week, and it didn’t involve scheme or audibles. Rather, Franklin had emphasized the importance of developing depth, of getting some of these young and exciting players live reps when it counted, especially during one of the few weeks on the schedule that wasn’t supposed to be a four-quarter rock fight.

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Ever procrastinate? Sure you have. You’ve put stuff off that probably should have been done today, and sometimes, you get a lucky break along the way—the boss decides he doesn’t need that presentation from you for another week, or your wife decides she wants to get a different tile for that bathroom renovation you’ve been putting off. So you feel justified in procrastinating. But you’re really not.

For the first, oh, 56 minutes of Penn State’s opener at Purdue, a disaster scenario was shaping up for the Nittany Lions. Sean Clifford was playing like, well, Sean Clifford, lifting the Nittany Lions to a healthy lead early then helping the Boilers get right back in it with a flurry of wildly inaccurate passing in the second half. The disaster part is that, when Clifford missed a series while getting an IV, Drew Allar came in the game and, in just four passes, stole the hearts of every Penn State fan and gave us an oh-so-brief but oh-so-tantalizing glimpse of what could be. Those four passes resulted in two completions, a drop, and a wobbly (but fast-moving) duck that had no chance, but damn it, the kid looked the part. Never mind the accuracy and the velocity, but he showed a true pocket presence—eyes downfield, feet moving but never retreating—that a certain other quarterback has shown for only slivers of a six-year career.

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