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JUMP AROUND Players cele- brate Saquon Barkley's leaping touchdown run against Illinois last month. The Nittany Lions se- cured a winning season with their 39-0 victo- ry over the Illini. From left to right: Paris Palmer, Barkley, Brandon Polk, Christian Hack- enberg. Photo by Bill Anderson hen Penn State thrashed Illinois last month, 39-0, much of the talk af- terward was about the team's of- fensive dominance. The rest was about its de- fensive dominance. Oh, and the weather. "I couldn't have asked for a better day," coach James Franklin said to open his postgame news conference. "We started out the year with a bunch of bad-weather games, so it was great this time of year to have that type of weather." The sunshine – both meteorological and atti- tudinal – was certainly welcome. The Nittany Lions had not exactly been monopolizing ESPN's College Football Top Plays, so a3er quarterback Christian Hackenberg caught a touchdown pass and Saquon Barkley leaped over two defenders at the goal line as if practic- ing for a slam dunk competition, and a3er the defense had posted its 2rst Big Ten shutout in six years, players and coaches were more than entitled to bask in the glow of arguably the best performance of the Franklin era. But amid the celebration, one signi2cant de- tail barely rated a mention: The win was Penn State's seventh of the season. Big deal, you say? Actually, yes. With only four more games to go (including a bowl game), the victory over the Illini assured the team of a winning record. That might seem like a fairly mundane accomplishment at a place like Penn State, which has had 112 winning seasons in 129 years of intercollegiate football. And there is an argument to be made that seven or eight wins should be the baseline expectation for a pro- gram of this stature. But of the truly great programs at the top of the college football hierarchy – Penn State ranked eighth in all-time victories with 856 as of mid-November – none have ever faced the kind of challenges that the Nittany Lions have been staring down since July 2012. The fact that Penn State has not had a losing season since the NCAA levied its penalties is one of the more remarkable accomplishments in the sport's recent history. Mind you, they've come close. A year ago, the Nittany Lions didn't assure themselves that they would 2nish above .500 until the very last play of the season, as Sam Ficken hit a PAT T H E 2 0 1 5 S E A S O N IMPERFECT STORM THE Many thought the NCAA had left only devastation in its wake when it hit Penn State three years ago. They were wrong W

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