STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Andy Kotelnicki walks into the Penn State meeting room with his thumb and index finger pinched a quarter-inch apart, and by now, everyone gets it.
"The difference," Kotelnicki says.
Just this much -- an eyelash, a triviality, a snap during practice, a rep on the weight bench, three extra minutes in the film room. That's the margin between Penn State, the perennial top-10 team knocking on the door of the College Football Playoff, and Penn State, national champs.
It's the refrain that has been repeated again and again this offseason, as Penn State embraces a new offensive philosophy in the first season of an expanded playoff in hopes that this year might finally be the year it all comes together.