This will be a week of melancholic reflection for Penn State as the program figures out how to get back on track. It was flying high just a week ago, but two painful losses in the span of six days have the team spiraling.
Any hopes of this being a special season are long gone, and now the Nittany Lions have to look themselves in the mirror and try to salvage this season. Luckily, they head back home to Beaver Stadium and have a chance to make a statement against USC. Let’s check out a few storylines surrounding the Blue and White as they prepare for what is arguably the most important week of the season.
Lost season?
The loss to the Wisconsin Badgers in Week 4 was a humbling one that showed Penn State that it is far from contention. However, losing to Northwestern
as badly as it did begs the question of whether this team will be able to regroup.
The Nittany Lions have a date with the Trojans this Saturday before going up against Michigan next week. If they continue to struggle this much for the rest of the season, then it’s hard to find many more wins on the schedule. It doesn’t take much to earn a trip to a Bowl Game, but the team could even be in danger of missing out on that.
White Out
One of the only saving graces for this team is that they get to return home to what will be a crazed crowd. No matter what type of momentum the team has, the fanbase will always get up for a White Out game.
It remains to be seen if Penn State has the talent to keep up with the Trojans, but hopefully the fans will give the team the extra jolt of energy they need to pull out a win. An upset this weekend would wholly improve the narrative around the team and energize the fanbase once again.
Oh no, Rocco
There was so much promise for quarterback Rocco Becht to start the season, but he hasn’t lived up to expectations recently. He is missing his No. 1 receiver and doesn’t have the best protection on the offensive line, but his play has been killing the team for weeks now.
The plays are there to be made, so he has to make them. Some teams in college football can get away with subpar passing games if the rushing attack is lethal, but that isn’t the case for the Nittany Lions. The offense has scored just 16 points in the last seven quarters of play; that isn’t going to cut it.
Pride
Whether this team can actually compete with USC or not, they need to show a lot of pride on Saturday night. They’ve been outscored 58-16 in the last seven quarters of play, and they were flat-out dominated by the Wildcats.
The objective of every game is to win, but for the blue and white, they just need to focus on giving as much effort as possible and not getting embarrassed again. This is a proud program, and it was just ranked a little more than a week ago, so another blowout loss cannot happen — especially not in a White Out game.
Big Ten blues
As much as it pains me to say, the Penn State Cyclones critics may have been right. Matt Campbell filled out this Nittany Lions roster with a plethora of Iowa State transfers, and while it looked good for a few weeks, it has been a disaster lately.
They have been played off the field the last couple of weeks and the new Big Ten coach has got to get it figured out. Not many people outside of Pennsylvania expected much out of this team, but they also didn’t expect them to get thoroughly outplayed by the likes of Wisconsin and Northwestern. Penn State thought Campbell was the right man for the job, and now he needs to remind everyone why he was chosen.
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This article originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire: Penn State’s season unraveling after back-to-back losses
