And that has made all the difference.

This season, though, if the Nittany Lions take the road they've traveled less - winning away from home - it could mean the difference between a good season and a great one.

But to get there, No. 6-ranked Penn State (5-0, 1-0) has to conquer a trail fraught with peril. Beginning with Saturday's test at Purdue (2-2), the Lions play four of their next five games on the road. That is where a Big Ten Conference championship - and possibly a national title - will be won or lost.

Since 2000, Penn State has gone 12-20 in road conference games, producing just one winning record (3-1 in 2005). And the Lions haven't beaten a ranked opponent away from Beaver Stadium in 10 tries since 2002. Fourteenth-ranked Wisconsin (Oct. 11) and No. 18 Ohio State (Oct. 25) are waiting.

"We've obviously had some problems on the road," coach Joe Paterno said. "But we've been beaten by teams that just either were better than we were, were better coached, or just played better. I don't know."

The Lions certainly aren't the first team to have trouble winning on the road. There's a reason why games at a team's own stadium are called home dates. There is no extended travel, the confines are familiar and often supportive.

"Obviously, you prefer to play at home," Paterno said. "You get a crowd such as we had Saturday [for Penn State's 38-24 win over Illinois] with all the excitement and the enthusiasm."

With Penn State the highest-ranked Big Ten team, opposing crowds are sure to amp up their game-day gusto. And that enthusiasm carries over to the players, who are already full of anticipation.

"The team that you're going to play against [is] really going to come out fired up," quarterback Daryll Clark said. "You have to weather the storm. You have to match their intensity."

It's not as if Penn State doesn't know how to win on the road. In their first seven seasons in the Big Ten, the Nittany Lions went 20-8. But for some reason, they become a different team away from State College, and it's more than the usual obstacles a road team faces.

A closer look at the 20 losses doesn't reveal a trend. Penn State has lost blowouts, shoot-outs, defensive struggles, and its share of tight finishes. Some believe Paterno goes even more into conservative mode - as he plainly did in last season's 14-9 loss at Michigan - in hostile environments.

"You try to evaluate the football team you're going to play," Paterno said. "You try to put together a travel schedule to make it possible for your kids to be mentally and physically ready to play as well as they can."

The coaches will set up speakers at practice this week to simulate noise. The team will fly its private airplane into Indianapolis on Friday evening and then drive up to West Lafayette, Ind.

It will eat dinner, sleep and then get up early Saturday for a noon kickoff. Otherwise, there isn't much different the players can do except maybe alter their mental approach.

"You can't go in there worried about not having the support that you usually have when you're playing at home," wide receiver Derrick Williams said.

This road, however, has been the one less traveled. Penn State, 121/2-point favorite, is 4-1 at Purdue's Ross-Ade Stadium.