STATE COLLEGE — Penn State linebacker Michael Mauti gets so intense sometimes, it looks he could take on all 11 players on the other side of the ball at once.

The Nittany Lions’ senior leader is playing the best football of his career, a role model on a team whose hallmark so far under new coach Bill O’Brien is passionate, every-second-counts intensity.

After an 0-2 start, these new Nittany Lions (3-2, 1-0 Big Ten) are on a three-game roll punctuated by their best all-around performance of the season with last week’s 35-7 thrashing of Illinois.

Just in time for a visit Saturday from No. 24 Northwestern (5-0, 1-0), the first ranked foe of the season for Penn State.

“They play, you know, like their hair is on fire every play,” O’Brien said Tuesday about his team’s effort all season.

There wasn’t much to complain about last week after Penn State dismantled the flailing Illini on the road. No Nittany Lion has been more representative of the team’s work ethic than Mauti, who had two interceptions — one for a school-record 99 yards — to go with six tackles and half sack.

It was an emotional win that meant a lot to Mauti and other Penn State players for the way Illinois coaches aggressively courted Nittany Lions in the offseason after the NCAA levied landmark sanctions on the school for its handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

Mauti was so good he was named the Walter Camp Football Foundation National Defensive Player of the Week award, and also won similar honors from the Big Ten for the second time in three weeks.

Mauti vows there won’t be a mental letdown this week for Northwestern, not with the season certain to end in November no matter how well Penn State does since the NCAA’s penalties include a four-year bowl ban.

“We don’t have any concerns about the team maintaining intensity. We only have a fixed number of games,” Mauti said Tuesday. “I’m not worried about any kind of lull like that.”