Tuesday's early snowfall obscured the distant mountain vista that typically fills the windows of Joe Paterno's spacious Lasch Building office on the Penn State campus.

His football team's horizon, at least in the overly cautious mind of the Nittany Lions coach, is no less hazy.

"I'll think about the future after we get through the next three games," he said Tuesday.

That stretch of three challenging but winnable games begins Saturday with a homecoming matchup against Purdue. Wisconsin will follow the Boilermakers into Beaver Stadium. Then, after a bye week, comes the final game at Michigan State.

Fans, sportswriters, even some Nittany Lions themselves, have begun to mention the possibility of Penn State (7-1) winning its first Big Ten title since 1994.

Paterno, not surprisingly, has quickly dismissed any such speculation. As always, he'd rather look prudent than look ahead.

"I just can't get into the same mind-set that you people are," Paterno said when asked about a Big Ten championship during his weekly teleconference. "It sounds like I'm being abrupt or not being respectful of the questions. But I am learning about Purdue, period. One game at a time."

He insisted that his unwillingness to gaze ahead was neither a coaching tactic nor a superstition, but merely a reflection of his personality.

"That's been my life, not only as far as football goes, but everything in my life," Paterno said. "Take care of the little things first and the big things will take care of themselves.

"Do what you have to do this week, and then we will take care of what we have to do next week. I have never felt that I had the luxury of being able to go beyond that. So, when you talk about what goes on after we play Purdue, I don't know."

There is, of course, some logic behind his wariness. Despite the fact that Penn State is just one second short of sporting a 5-0 league record, the conference remains so tightly bunched that any of seven teams still could win it.

Like Penn State, Wisconsin is 4-1. Ohio State and Northwestern are 3-1. And Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota have just two losses.

Still, the Nittany Lions appear to be the favorites at this point. They are playing as well as any Big Ten team, have two of their final three games at home, and this week face a 2-5 Purdue team that has lost all four conference games.

"A lot of little things are going the wrong way for them," said Paterno, who frequently said the same thing about his own team in 2004. "But they're still a very talented football team and extremely well-coached.

"Before the season started, I had thought, when everybody was talking Ohio State, Michigan and Iowa, in the back of my mind, I thought Purdue was going to be the better team in the league. I'm surprised they haven't won more games."

Notes:

Paterno credited Purdue coach Joe Tiller's preference for passing with altering the black-and-blue image of Big Ten football. "He changed the whole attitude of the league. ... He came in with the idea that we didn't have to knock each other's brains out every play." ... Linebacker Dan Connor, suspended for the first three games, "has a ways to go yet" before he reaches his potential, Paterno said. "Obviously, he has talent. He certainly didn't help himself with (the suspension-causing) shenanigans. Whether he is as good as he can be or not, I don't know. I don't know how good he can be. I've never really seen him where he has had to play game-in and game-out with one tough team after another."

Paterno said quarterback Michael Robinson, who was named the Big Ten's offensive player of the week, "has been the heart of the football team and hasn't gotten anywhere near the notoriety nationally that he should have." ... Freshman receiver Jordan Norwood, who sat out the Illinois win with a bruised foot, should return to action this week. "He has a brace on that foot because they are a little bit nervous about it," Paterno said. "He limped a little bit, but (Monday) he looked like he was 100 percent."