Penn State’s players had a new message waiting for them Tuesday morning, and it came straight from athletic director Pat Kraft.
Quarterback Rocco Becht and tight end Ben Brahmer were both wearing shirts late Tuesday morning that hadn’t been seen before. The team had been given them all, and the message across the front was simple: Own the outcome.
Brahmer said Kraft was the one behind it, and that the shirts came with a note tucked into the players’ lockers.
“Mr. Kraft gave us (the shirts) with a note in our little lockers. So just owning the outcome and understanding that we gotta control what we can control and continue working as hard as we can in practice, and own whatever happens to us on Saturdays,” Brahmer said.
The gesture fits the way Kraft has handled Penn State football since taking a more visible role in the program. He was the one who made the decision to fire James Franklin in the middle of Franklin’s 12th season last October, a move that kicked off a coaching search that stretched nearly two months.
That search ended with the hiring of Campbell, who is 4-4 overall and 1-4 in the Big Ten early in his Penn State tenure.
Kraft’s presence around the program has been hard to miss. He’s on the sideline for every game and shows plenty of emotion when the moment calls for it. He also showed how personally he takes the players’ experience when he got emotional discussing Drew Allar’s season-ending injury last year.
Now, with the shirts and the note, Kraft’s message to the team is clear: focus on what can be controlled, and own whatever comes next.
In Other News...
Iowa State May Have Found The Identity This Team Will Lean On
Iowa States home season opener offered a pretty clear snapshot of what this group wants to be, and it started on the defensive end. In an 83-57 win over Southern Miss, forward Taj Manning made his presence felt with a career-high four blocks and the kind of active, disruptive work that can change the tone of a game without ever showing up in the box score the same way points do.
Coach T.J. Otzelberger pointed to Mannings defensive impact while also stressing rebounding and defense as the areas that have to keep driving this team forward. On the other end, Northwestern transfer Tre Singleton supplied the scoring punch with a career-high 28 points and led the Cyclones in rebounds, giving Iowa State a glimpse of the balance it may lean on as the schedule gets tougher. [Read more 🡒]
Iowa State Let A Promising Start Turn Into Another Frustrating Finish
Iowa State looked ready to seize control early against Baylor, jumping out to a 10-0 lead and giving the home crowd reason to think this one might follow a different script. Aiden Flora provided much of the spark for the Cyclones, piling up 182 rushing yards and a touchdown, while Hunter Dekkers kept the offense moving with 22 completions on 37 attempts for 256 yards and two scores.
Then the game flipped. A muffed punt by Flora became the opening Baylor needed, and the Bears turned that break into points before taking the lead for good on the way to a 42-31 win. For Iowa State, it was another frustrating reminder that a strong start only matters if it survives the middle stretches, and this one slipped away in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]
Tre Singleton Just Gave Iowa State The Bounce-Back It Needed
After a rough opener, Iowa State finally found some rhythm in an 83-57 win over Southern Miss, and Tre Singleton was at the center of it. He powered the Cyclones with 28 points and nine rebounds, giving them the kind of interior production and energy they had been missing while helping the team settle in on both ends.
The bigger takeaway was the response. Iowa State looked sharper defensively than it did against Memphis, a sign the group was ready to clean up some early-season issues before the schedule keeps moving. The Cyclones now head home to face Southern, where theyll try to build on a performance that felt more like the version of this team they expected to see. [Read more 🡒]