"Let the offense get all the recognition,'' Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said after the Nittany Lions' glitzy, Spread HD attack, which had been averaging 49.8 points per game, hit a bit of a snag in Saturday's 20-6 victory at Purdue.

Although the sixth-ranked Lions (6-0, 2-0 Big Ten) outgained the Boilermakers (2-3, 0-1), 422 yards to 241, they failed to maximize several red-zone scoring opportunities in part because of a lack of traction on Ross-Ade Stadium's apparently slippery grass playing surface, and in part because, well, sometimes everything doesn't click just so.

"Obviously, every game we're not going to go out and put up 50 [points],'' shrugged wide receiver Deon Butler.

Not to worry. With the offense sputtering a bit, that overlooked and occasionally underappreciated defense held Purdue scoreless until midway through the fourth quarter and so shut down record-setting passer Curtis Painter that he was pulled by coach Joe Tiller in the late going. Backup quarterback Joey Elliott led the Boilers on their sole scoring drive, which prevented them from getting shut out for only the second time in the 11-plus-season Tiller era. The other blanking came in 2006, also against Penn State.

"The sky's the limit for this defense,'' said Penn State linebacker Navorro Bowman. "We have a lot of good athletes on this defense.''

What the Lions don't have is high-profile superstars like Posluszny, Connor, Lee and Tamba Hali, who have come to define the Penn State defense in recent years. Aaron Maybin, a redshirt sophomore defensive end who became a starter in the second game this season after Evans was suspended, has since emerged as the leader of the No-Names, registering a 5-yard sack of Painter that boosted his Big Ten-leading total to seven.

"We basically tried to do what we've been doing since the beginning of the season - rush the passer and eliminate the run,'' Maybin said of Penn State's latest domination of the high-tech but physically underwhelming Purdue offense.

In going to Madison for this Saturday night's game (8 o'clock, ESPN) against the Wisconsin Badgers, Bradley and the No-Names will be like the fighter who has to prove he not only can outbox a boxer (Purdue), but outslug a slugger. Wisconsin (3-2, 0-2), which lost a 20-17 heartbreaker to visiting Ohio State when Buckeyes freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor scored on an 11-yard keeper with 1 minute, 8 seconds remaining, for the most part has a plain-vanilla attack in which power runners P.J. Hill and John Clay operate behind a massive offensive line. *