Notebook: Penn State players searching for answers after embarrassing defeat

One by one, Penn State’s players strolled into the media to face the media following Michigan’s 41-17 shellacking of the Nittany Lions on Saturday. Calling the mood somber would be a bit of a disservice. To their credit, players took questions head-on, gave thoughtful answers as they often do and admitted both through words and body language that they were on the wrong side of a woodshedding from the Wolverines. 

“I definitely thought they dominated the line of scrimmage and to win football games In the Big Ten, especially on the road, you can’t play like that,” tight end Brenton Strange said after the loss. “So I think that’s something that we’re gonna have to talk about on Sunday, and it’s definitely something that needs to improve.”

But how? It’s one thing to be a play or a call away, but being physically manhandled for 60 minutes is another story. Strange said that it will take some soul-searching for the Nittany Lions to regroup with just a week before Minnesota comes to town.

“We have to change that mindset coming into the game, it’s a lot of factors honestly,” he said. “I think we need to have those hard conversations with everybody; the offensive line, defensive line, tight ends, everybody involved with the front. So come in tomorrow and we’ll talk about that.”

Penn State defense eager to forget Michigan game

The message was the same from the defensive side of the ball, which kept the game close through the first half but buckled to two big runs by the Wolverines in a 15-point third quarter that put the contest out of reach. 

“I’m not going to dwell on his game,” said safety Ji’Ayir Brown, who led the Nittany Lions with nine tackles on Saturday. “I’ll be done talking about after tomorrow. And I’m gonna take steps to help. As a captain, I’m gonna take steps to put the team in the right direction and make us better for the next one.”

The next one figures to be another physical contest against the visiting Minnesota Golden Gophers, who come to Beaver Stadium for a White Out tilt on Saturday night. The Gophers tout the third-ranked rushing offense in the Big Ten behind only Michigan and Ohio State. Penn State gave up 418 yards on the ground at Michigan and the Nittany Lions have an unfavorable record following the first loss of the season in recent years.  

Brown and the team’s other leaders will preach the importance of having a short-term memory this week to the team’s younger core. 

“It’s a set-and-forget mindset,” said Brown. “It happened already, it’s in the past. There’s nothing we can do, there’s nothing nobody in the world can do to change that. It’s about the next opponent. It’s all about how you can bounce back from that. How can you make that game forgettable? The way you can make that game forgettable is by playing an amazing game the next week. That’s my message to the younger guys.

“I was a part of the team you know when it happened last year. I have a very specific plan I want to do you know, just try to get the guys to forget about as soon as possible. Come out and still be the same team that we were before this game.”

Nittany Lions’ defense searching for answers

The Nittany Lions were outplayed on both sides of the ball, but also found themselves out of place in multiple situations as the Wolverines imposed their will.

“I think it all starts with knowing your assignment. When you know your assignment, you can play fast you can read your keys and you can strike,” linebacker Jonathan Sutherland said after the game. “I don’t doubt the toughness of any of the players on our defense. So I think we just need to lock into our assignments know what we’re doing so we can play faster and anticipate things more.

“We haven’t seen the film, you know, but there’s a lot of plays where everyone’s just looking back and forth, like, what just happened? So we’re gonna get on the film and from there we’ll make the corrections.”