Hope again replaced with heartbreak as Penn State football finds another way to lose
In the final minutes of Saturday’s game against Indiana, Penn State players high-fived and hyped each other up by yelling on the sideline. Coaches were engaged, going over what to look for with their players. Athletic department members shouted in celebration after each big play.
For the first time in over a month, there was real energy to Penn State football — as if, for a brief period of time, the Nittany Lions found the preseason team that dreamed of winning a national title.
But then it collapsed. Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza made one spectacular play after another and the Hoosiers ripped Penn State’s heart out, winning the game on a beautiful throw by Mendoza to Omar Cooper Jr. The air was sucked out of Beaver Stadium.
A team that once had designs on winning it all dropped to 3-6 after another gut punch in a season full of them.
That’s part of what makes this so difficult. It’s not as if Penn State is far away. Five of its six losses are by one score — including Saturday’s 27-24 defeat — and, each time the Nittany Lions are close to getting over the hump, something goes wrong. And on Saturday, it was Cooper tapping his toe in the end zone just before his other foot landed out of bounds to score that touchdown.
Those are the breaks. And when you’re 3-6, it can feel as if they’re all going against you.
“We’re all wanting the plays to go our way,” interim head coach Terry Smith said. “We’re talking blades of grass, right? (This goes) back to the Oregon game. ... Just trying to make sure my guys know I’m fighting every wave of the storm for them guys. And just hope to try and turn the tide.”
Penn State hasn’t always earned those breaks. Against Oregon, when a would-be fumble was overturned because the Ducks player touched a few blades of grass to end the play, the Nittany Lions did not play like the better team. The same can be said about its matchups with UCLA and Northwestern.
But Saturday was different. It felt as if they deserved this one. But they still didn’t get it and, instead, this will just be another game added to the list where the Nittany Lions were really good — but not good enough. And that can take its toll.
“It’s tough. It’s definitely tough,” defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton said. “We go through emotions through the game. Ups; downs. Then you’re really high like, ‘Oh man, we about to win this game. We about to beat the No. 2 team in the country.’ Then they go down, drive the field and score. It’s tough because you’re on the emotional rollercoaster through the whole game.”
And sometimes it’s hard to find answers.
“I don’t know the solution,” Dennis-Sutton added. “Obviously, the team, we can’t figure it out. We’ve been close, but we just haven’t been able to finish. I’ve definitely been in that mindset of like, ‘Dude we gotta figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out.’ We just haven’t been able to.”
Despite that frustration, this team does not have a choice about what comes next — it must trudge forward. And it must because it has three games left to play.
But also because Smith won’t accept anything less.
“We’re gonna come back next week,” Smith said. “We’re gonna fight harder. No one will ever question a Terry Smith team that they don’t play hard.”
And so they will move on. This time to Michigan State on the road.
They have no other choice.
This story was originally published November 8, 2025 at 7:19 PM.
