The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 28-10 win over MSU

Penn State earned its first Big Ten win of the season Saturday evening, defeating Michigan State in Spartan Stadium, 28-10, to move to 4-6 and keep its bowl eligibility hopes alive.

Let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly for the Nittany Lions.

Good

Ethan Grunkemeyer’s growth: I have been critical of how redshirt freshman quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer has played (with the acknowledgement that he’s a redshirt freshman who was thrust into an unexpected role) but on Saturday he had arguably his best game of the season. Grunkemeyer was accurate and poised against Michigan State, consistently working through his progressions and finding an open target. He still made a few subpar decisions, but he played more than well enough for the Nittany Lions to get the win. While he will need to keep improving to show he can be the starter on an elite team, there’s enough on film to make a coaching staff (whether it’s Penn State’s or someone else’s) to believe he can get the job done. And if he takes that next step, he should have a very successful college career that could extend even further.

Kaytron Allen’s chances of breaking the PSU rushing record: Both Allen and Nick Singleton came into the season with a good shot at breaking the record, but at this point it’s the former’s to lose. Allen is 138 yards shy of tying Evan Royster’s career mark of 3,932, while Singleton is just over 600 yards short. The Nittany Lions have two games remaining — and potentially a bowl game if they win out — which should give Allen more than enough opportunities to get the job done. He’ll have a chance to be the program’s first 4,000 yard rusher if he plays well in both games, but at the very least he should be able to average the 69.5 yards per game necessary to eclipse Royster. While the season has largely been an overall disappointment, there will at least be some mark in the program’s record books from one of the most talented teams it has seen.

Dani Dennis-Sutton: The Penn State pass rush has picked up over the last two weeks, and a lot of that is because Dennis-Sutton is looking more like the player he was expected to be heading into the season. He’s leaning more into physical advantage over opponents and is more consistently collapsing the pocket from the edge, or just getting to the quarterback himself. He even blocked a punt against the Spartans (his third of the season). Dennis-Sutton is unlikely to end up as a first-round pick after a down 2025 season, but he has given his draft stock a boost with how he played against the Hoosiers and Spartans. The defensive end remains one of the best players on the team and will need to keep playing at this level if Penn State wants a chance to make a bowl game.

Terry Smith: Few people deserve more credit for holding the program together over the last month than Smith. The interim head coach has kept the Nittany Lions playing hard despite gut punch after gut punch that could have easily led to them quitting. They have responded every week in his tenure, including in the team’s narrow 27-24 loss to No. 2 Indiana that could have been the final nail in the coffin . Instead, Penn State responded by taking care of business against Michigan State on the road Saturday. Sure, the Spartans are really bad, but it’s not like PSU had done anything heading into the game to deserve the benefit of the doubt. It still matters that Smith, who could be on the staff under the next head coach, kept the Nittany Lions playing hard en route to his first win as a head coach.

Offensive line: The 2025 Nittany Lions were supposed to have one of the best offensive lines in college football. They were supposed to dominate teams physically in the trenches and lean on teams late in games to wear them out on Penn State’s way to victory. And on Saturday, for the first time this season, that’s what happened. It may have taken 10 games to get there, but at least it did eventually. The PSU offensive line’s performance against Michigan State is a glimpse into what this season could have been for the program before former head coach James Franklin was fired and turmoil ensued. The Nittany Lions were dominant up front, consistently creating space for running backs Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton. The group won’t win any awards like many thought this season, but at least it showed there was some merit to thinking it could be elite.

Bad

Luke Reynolds’ struggles: It has been a long year for a lot of Nittany Lions, and that includes some of the promising young players from the 2024 team like Reynolds. The sophomore tight end has struggled with drops this season and has not taken a step forward as a blocker like he was expected to. He’s not been able to get going in conference play and this year is likely to be a lost season in his progression. That being said, he still has plenty of upside and he wouldn’t be the first player who had a sophomore slump before breaking out in a big way as a junior. Reynolds is still one of the most promising players on the team, and will almost assuredly be one of the most sought-after players in the country if he were to decide to enter the transfer portal due to the coaching change.

Ugly

Wide receiver production: This remains the story of the last couple of seasons for Penn State. The team’s wide receivers have just not been good enough. And despite a few good plays by both Devonte Ross and Trebor Peña, they were still mostly non-existent Saturday night in East Lansing. Ross has been good, but does not get enough targets. Peña has been better as of late, but has been miscast as a gadget player rather than a slot receiver who can get open in the middle of the field. And Kyron Hudson has been a disappointment for the Nittany Lions, failing to contribute in a meaningful way this season. Even young players like Koby Howard and Tyseer Denmark, while showing promise, haven’t played enough to produce at a high level. The team’s failures will be the story of the season, and the wide receivers will be a massive part of that on the offensive side of the ball.

Jon Sauber

Centre Daily Times

(814) 231-6461

Jon Sauber covers Penn State football and men’s basketball for the Centre Daily Times. He earned his B.A. in digital and print journalism from Penn State and his M.A. in sports journalism from IUPUI. His previous stops include jobs at The Indianapolis Star, the NCAA, and Rivals.