PAYBACK

Typically, this is not an easy week for Nittany Lion fans. Although outsiders to Penn State football might wonder how things could be anything but blissful in Happy Valley, they can't realize how lightly Penn State fans typically tread during this week of the season. The Lions are coming off of a weekend that saw them jump up to #3 in both polls and improve to 7-0 after a thorough whipping of Wisconsin on Saturday; but Penn State fans have been conditioned to fear Michigan Week, a week where Penn State seasons have gone to die since 1997. Oh sure, there have been years when fans felt confident about the Lions' chances against the Wolverines - 1998, 1999, 2002, 2005 and 2007...but Penn State lost all of those games. This year seems much different.

This season, I would argue that the general feeling of the Nittany Lions' fans isn't optimism, but vengeance. This weekend is starting to feel a lot like the Notre Dame weekend last year, when fans were frothing at the mouth at a chance to pay Charlie Weis back for the beating he laid on the Lions in 2006, only its nine times worse. This is the year Penn State can pay Michigan back for eleven years of grief in 60 minutes.

This is the game that Penn State can repay Michigan for embarrassing it at home in November of 1997 when the Lions were ranked second in the country and headed for a shot at a National Championship.

This is the game that Penn State can repay Michigan for handing Joe Paterno just the fifth shutout of his career in 1998 at The Big House, and then blanking the Lions again in 2001.

This is the game that Penn State can repay Michigan for spoiling Senior Day for former Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky in 1999...another charmed season derailed in November.

This is the game that Penn State can finally put the "robberies" in Ann Arbor in both 2002 and 2005 behind it and start a new tradition in this rivalry.

The 2008 Nittany Lions, led by the reigning offensive (Daryll Clark) and defensive (Aaron Maybin) conference players of the week, will take the field on Homecoming weekend with a chance to not only further carve out its own place in Penn State lore, but also an opportunity to exorcise the demons that have plagued Nittany Lion football for more than a decade.

Some of Penn State's greatest players have never got past the Maize and Blue. LaVar Arrington, Michael Haynes, Larry Johnson, Tamba Hali, Michael Robinson, Paul Posluszny, Tony Hunt, and Dan Connor are just a few of the recent standouts to have suffered during the humiliating nine-game losing streak to the Wolverines. Each of them, like souls in a football purgatory, await release from the stranglehold that Michigan football has saddled Penn State with.

This Saturday, Penn State fans don't just hope to win...they expect to win. And that's a wonderful, new feeling to have during Michigan week.