October 11. Twenty-seven days ago.
That was the last time Penn State football played at Beaver Stadium in an embarrassing 22-21 loss to Northwestern. A lot has happened to the program since then, to say the least.
James Franklin was fired the day following the loss, Penn State lost what seems like a million recruits, Drew Allar went out with a season-ending injury, and the Nittany Lions dropped two more games under interim head coach Terry Smith to extend their losing streak to five.
Yeah. It’s been a rough stretch of weeks for the program and Penn State faithful. Yet, there’s no other way but forward. Penn State has to turn around from its 38-14 loss to top-ranked Ohio State and face the No. 2 team in the country in the surging Indiana Hoosiers.
“Just playing Indiana, they’re a good team. Another challenge. They got not too complex at all as far as this game, but they do everything with technique,” redshirt junior linebacker Keon Wylie said after practice on Wednesday. “They do what they’re supposed to do each play, so just always doing my job, making sure everything good on my end to help the team win.”
Wylie is right. It’s going to be the toughest challenge Penn State faces so far this season, just a week after Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate, and the rest of the Buckeyes thrashed the Nittany Lions for 480 total yards of offense. Indiana boasts the No. 1 scoring offense in the country, averaging 46.4 points per game with Heisman candidate Fernando Mendoza under center.
Penn State players know that fans are unhappy with the team’s performance this season. It’s no secret. The dissatisfaction was readily apparent in the frequent boos and “fire Franklin” chants on that fateful day against the Wildcats. With the team underperforming so severely, a deadly opponent coming to town, and playing the first home game without Franklin on the sideline since 2013, it’s hard to predict how Penn State fans will behave come noon on Saturday.
“Feels good to have the fans back. It’s going to be a little bit shaky because, you know, we obviously lost five games in a row, so see how it goes. Glad to be back, though,” tight end Khalil Dinkins said.
A lot of that shakiness that Dinkins refers to stems from Smith’s job as interim head coach so far. It’s obviously an impossible position to be in, but Penn State’s already lost out on a plethora of highly-touted recruits, and the cherry on top was redshirt sophomore Joey Schlaffer stepping down from the team and stating his intent to enter the transfer portal.
“Joey [Schlaffer] made a decision to leave. We respect that. I don’t anticipate anyone else leaving. Morale has been really good. At the end of the day, we’re going to play with who’s here,” Smith said. “Our roster is still here. These guys are excited to play a great Indiana team this weekend, and they’re preparing to go play hard for Saturday.”
Even with all of the negativity and uncertainty surrounding the program, the team knows that all it needs is one win to get the gears rolling and string together some positives to wind the season down. Dinkins said he knows Penn State can be competitive with top dogs like Ohio State and Indiana, but the team just has to finish as strongly as it starts. And that all starts with having the Beaver Stadium crowd back.
“We need momentum. We need our crowd to cheer us. We need support…It’s a family we need, we need family. We need that support to encourage our guys when it’s tough to keep moving forward, keep pressing forward,” Smith said. “It’s home field advantage, it’s Beaver Stadium. It’s where we should be cheered and we welcome a great crowd and great intensity from the crowd to help us push forward to victory.”
Smith isn’t oblivious to the fire that was ignited in the home crowd from the second Dillion Thieneman picked off Allar in double-overtime to end the White Out against Oregon. He said the team hears the noise, but he’s emphasized to the players that they need to hear the positive. At the end of the day, the majority of Beaver Stadium is still choosing to rally around and support the squad.
“Coach Terry’s [Smith] message for the last couple of weeks ‘one chop at a time’,” offensive lineman Vega Ioane said. “Very unfortunate outcome of the game, but we just got to keep going. Keep chopping at it. The light will shine on us one day.”
A win over Indiana would be the silver lining of an otherwise disastrous season for the Nittany Lions. All it takes is one.
Oscar is a second-year broadcast journalism student from Los Angeles. In his downtime, he can be found crying while watching Todd Gurley highlights or reposting movie edits on TikTok. He mostly writes about Penn State football. Email him at [email protected] or message him on Instagram @_oscarorellana.
