The No. 5/4 Penn State Nittany Lions take on the Iowa Hawkeyes at 8 p.m. Saturday night inside Beaver Stadium and on ABC. It is the Big Ten opener for both squads and is the biggest test the Nittany Lions have had thus far in 2009.

110,000 fans wearing white will be expecting Penn State to seek revenge against Iowa, the only team to beat the Nittany Lions in the 2008 regular season. Daniel Murray kicked the game-winning field goal as time expired in that one.

Iowa (3-0) comes into the game trailing Penn State in the all-time series 11-10, but under Kirk Ferentz they have won six of the last seven meetings, dating back to 2000. The road team in the series has also won 13 of the 21 meetings.

Penn State (3-0) will look for the huge win against a team they flat out have not played well against lately.

The Nittany Lions finally showed they had a run game last week against Temple. Evan Royster rushed for 134 yards on 19 carries and will look to continue that this Saturday. The Hawkeyes had a great run defense last year but have struggled to stop it in the first three games of 2009. They have allowed an average of 140.7 yards on the ground.

Daryll Clark will look to revenge his poor game in 2008 in Iowa City with a solid performance. Last week against Temple, Clark was pressured a lot because the pass blocking was not as good as the first two games.

If Clark is pressured that much this week against Iowa, look for him to make plays with his legs, something he hasn’t done yet this season.

The Hawkeyes secondary is only allowing 162.7 yards per game. This will be a great test for Graham Zug, Derek Moye and Chaz Powell, the main three Penn State receivers, to go up against. Sophomore CB Tyler Sash has four interceptions and leads the Hawkeyes with 25 tackles.

On the other side of the ball there are some big injury issues for Penn State. Both of their stud linebackers are questionable to play on Saturday. Navarro Bowman has missed the last two games with a groin injury and Sean Lee left in the second half of last weeks contest with a banged up knee.

Penn State would like at least one if not both to play in this game but we won’t know whether that happens until they suit up on Saturday night. If they can’t go Josh Hull, Nate Stupar, Bani Gbadyu and Chris Colasanti will have to step up and play great.

The Hawkeyes have showed a balanced offense so far, averaging 137 yards on the ground and 227.3 through the air in their first three games. Ricky Stanzi, who played great in last seasons win, has thrown for 644 yards and five touchdowns.

Adam Robinson is the Hawkeyes leading rusher, with 233 yards and three touchdowns. He will find it tough to run against Penn State’s front. The Nittany Lions are only allowing 46.3 yards per game on the ground and 1.6 yards per carry.

The Penn State defense has allowed seven or fewer points in all three or their games, so it will be interesting to see if Iowa, who averages 26.3 points per game will be able to score.

The Hawkeyes escaped their season opener against Northern Iowa by blocking two field goal attempts in the last seven seconds to win 17-16, but dropped out of the top 25 polls. Since then they have looked better each week, defeating instate rival Iowa State 35-3 and Arizona 27-17. However, they didn’t creep back into the rankings for this matchup.

The x-factor in this one could be the crowd. Penn State has called for only the third all-stadium white out in school history. Penn State beat Notre Dame in 2007 and Illinois in 2008 when a “Whitehouse” has been in effect.

Also, ESPN’s College Gameday will also be at Penn State’s campus this weekend. This should only excite the Nittany Lions faithful even more than they already will be.

This is the first weekend that it feels like there is a big-game buzz in State College this season and it should be fun come Saturday night, unless the Hawkeyes play spoiler to Penn State once again.