The Big Ten has set the stage for Penn State’s trip to Michigan, and it won’t be under the lights. The Oct. 17 matchup in Ann Arbor is slated for a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff at Michigan Stadium, with broadcast details still to be announced.
That slot came after plenty of buzz around a potential night game, but the conference went a different direction when it released kickoff and television windows for its Week 7 slate on Monday. The timing matters because both teams arrive in the same unusual place: 0-2 in Big Ten play.
Penn State is coming off a rough 34-13 loss at Northwestern on Friday, a game in which the Wildcats piled up 413 rushing yards and limited the Nittany Lions to 48 on the ground while opening New Ryan Field with a statement win. It marked Penn State’s second straight season opening league play 0-2.
Michigan’s situation is no better. The Wolverines fell 20-14 to Minnesota last week, dropping to 0-2 in conference play for the first time since 2014, Brady Hoke’s final season in charge. Minnesota also claimed the Little Brown Jug at home for the first time in 49 years.
"I'm still trying to figure it out. I've been in this profession for 40-plus years, and this is the biggest challenge I've had," Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham said.
"We will get it figured out, I promise you that. I'm not sure what the timeline is, but I promise you we'll get it figured out at some juncture.
A lot of answers that we've got to come up with, because we've got so many deficiencies."
The Penn State-Michigan meeting will be the teams’ first since 2023, when the Wolverines won 24-14 on the way to a national championship. Michigan has taken the last three in the series and owns a 17-10 edge in Big Ten play.
Penn State’s history in Ann Arbor hasn’t been kind, either. The Nittany Lions are 4-10 at Michigan Stadium and have won there only once since 2009, that 27-17 victory during the 2020 Covid season.
The Michigan game lands in the middle of a tricky stretch for Penn State, which hosts No. 19 USC on Saturday in the only ranked game on its regular-season schedule. USC’s visit will be the Trojans’ first trip to Beaver Stadium since 1994, and Penn State will host the annual White Out.
That atmosphere will look a lot different from last year’s White Out, when Penn State welcomed Oregon as an unbeaten No. 2 team. This time, Matt Campbell’s team enters with two Big Ten losses for the first time since 2016.
The market has already reacted. White Out ticket prices on the resale market have dropped by more than half since the Northwestern loss, and Penn State still hasn’t beaten a Power 4 team this season.
After the loss at Northwestern, Penn State offensive lineman Cooper Cousins tried to steer the team’s mindset in a better direction.
"The biggest thing is, you can have a victim mentality or a victor mentality," Cousins said late Friday night at New Ryan Field. "So my biggest focus, not only for the team right now but even for myself, is to not have a victim mentality, because we’ve got a good opponent next week and we've got to get ready to go."
Kickoff for Penn State-USC is set for 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC's Big Ten Saturday Night.
In Other News...
Michigan Offense Is Taking Heat From One Of Their Own
After Michigans loss to Minnesota, one of the programs own took aim at what he saw from the offense. Jake Butt, the former Wolverines tight end who now works as a Big Ten analyst, described the performance as poor and said the unit lacked effort, a blunt assessment that landed hard for a team already searching for answers.
The criticism comes with Michigan still sitting near the bottom of the national rankings in total offense and rushing yards through five games, a jarring place for a program built on physical play and run-game identity. Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham also weighed in, saying Michigan has to make tough decisions and real adjustments to get moving, including the possibility of a quarterback change, as the pressure to fix the offense keeps building. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan May Have Just Shown The Only Way To Stop The Slide
The red zone trip that led to Jordan Marshalls touchdown was one of the few clean moments Michigan had in a 20-14 loss to Minnesota, and it stood out because it looked like the kind of sequence the offense has been searching for all season. After a series of successful plays, the Wolverines finished the possession with the kind of execution that has too often been missing when drives get tight and the field shrinks.
For a team still trying to stop the slide, that single trip offered a small but useful reminder of what works. Michigan did not get many chances near the goal line, but when it finally did, the drive suggested there is at least a blueprint there, even if the larger picture around it remains discouraging. [Read more 🡒]
Michigans Offense Has Become A Bigger Problem Than Fans Feared
Michigans latest setback in Minneapolis was about more than just another loss. The 20-14 defeat to Minnesota dropped the Wolverines to 3-2 overall and 0-2 in the Big Ten, and it came with the kind of offensive frustration that can linger long after the final whistle. The ground game never really got going, the quarterback play was uneven, and the tight end production never gave the offense the dependable middle of the field presence it needed.
Pro Football Focus grades backed up what the eye test suggested, with wide receiver JJ Buchanan, center Jake Guarnera and right tackle Blake Frazier emerging as the top offensive performers. Beyond them, though, the chart was thin, and Zack Marshalls low grade at tight end reflected how few answers Michigan had in the passing game and around the line of scrimmage. For a team already staring at an 0-2 Big Ten start, the bigger concern now is whether theres a fix here or just a longer search for one. [Read more 🡒]