When you finish 3-9, as the Wildcats did last season, you have a lot of payback games the next year. When your opponents outscore you by the average of 41.1 points to 22.7, you also have some embarrassing performances that need to be eradicated. It’s no surprise there will be some personal stakes up for grabs Saturday when Penn State visits. The Nittany Lions routed Northwestern by 49 points last year behind the 257 yards of running back Larry Johnson. “They played a game on `SportsCenter’; who can tackle Larry Johnson?'” NU safety Louis Ayeni said. That’s not all he remembers. There is also the 2001 game, in which an 0-4 Nittany Lions team escaped with a 38-35 victory. “Then we didn’t win another Big Ten game until the next year at Indiana,” Ayeni said.
– 11 a.m. Saturday vs. Penn State, ESPN2
