STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Penn State’s first season under Matt Campbell has already hit the kind of rough patch that can define a year, and right now the Nittany Lions are still searching for something sturdy to hold onto.
After rolling through nonconference play, Penn State has dropped to 3-2 overall and 0-2 in Big Ten action, with both losses exposing the same ugly problem. Wisconsin “claw[ed] a win away” in the opener, and the home crowd turned on the Nittany Lions after that one. Then Northwestern pushed them around last week, a painful echo of the same Wildcats team that beat former coach James Franklin for a third straight conference loss and helped lead to his firing.
That sequence, along with what many fans have viewed as overly cautious coaching decisions in both defeats, has frayed the mood around the program. The White Out game against No. 19 USC on Saturday still has plenty of tickets available, a striking sign for an event that is usually sold out.
“To be quite honest with you, the frustration from my end is you want to give our players, our coaches, and this community something to be really proud of and what it represents and we’re not there yet,” Campbell said. “The reality of it is I’m not surprised.”
He also made clear that there’s no quick fix waiting around the corner. Before Penn State can worry about bigger goals, it has to look like a team with a pulse and a purpose.
Right now, the numbers tell the story. The Nittany Lions have scored only four touchdowns, allowed 58 points, and surrendered 533 rushing yards against two Big Ten opponents.
That’s not a foundation. That’s a problem.
“The reality is we’re five games into building standards and expectations,” Campbell said. “As we continue to build this, adversity was going to be a part of this, and we are in it and we needed to be in it to be able to grow forward to be the team we want to become.”
The roster makeup only adds to the challenge. Campbell arrived Dec. 5, just 18 days after his predecessor left for Virginia Tech and six days before former Penn State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles took the same job at Tennessee. Twelve players - including starting quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer and tight end Luke Reynolds - followed Franklin to Virginia Tech, while three defensive starters stayed with Knowles.
That left Campbell with 50 players in place when he got to work. He rebuilt with transfers from 16 programs, including 24 who came with him from Iowa State. Penn State’s starting lineup currently features 12 former Cyclones split across offense and defense.
“I think the uniqueness of last offseason, when timing, all that stuff, I think you always are learning and growing. But at the end of the day I think we did everything in our power to get the right team and the right humans in this building for the situation at hand,” Campbell said. “I certainly wouldn’t second-guess what we did there.”
Building chemistry takes time, and so does adjusting to the Big Ten. Many of these players are still learning what that week-to-week grind looks like. Campbell’s Iowa State teams played Iowa every year during his tenure, finishing 3-6 in that rivalry, though the Cyclones beat their only Big Ten opponent in each of the last two seasons.
“At the end of the day it’s football and we’re playing football at a really high level,” linebacker Cael Brezina said. “The Big Ten is an elite conference and I would say the Big 12 brings a lot of really good stuff to the table too. So you felt a little bit of a difference, but at the end of the day, we’re playing football.”
Penn State’s next chance to steady itself comes against a USC team that enters at 5-1 and 0-1 in the Big Ten. The Trojans bring another test, and they’ll do it with one of their own old faces now on the other sideline: former USC defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn, who now leads Penn State’s defense.
Lynn knows exactly what Penn State’s standard is supposed to look like on that side of the ball. He also knows the film from Northwestern didn’t show much of it.
When he watched that game back, one thing stood out immediately: the line of scrimmage.
“I don’t know if we won the line of scrimmage once,” Lynn said. “We didn’t lose every time, but we didn’t win at all.”
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Penn State Faces A Bigger Problem Than Its Slow Start
Penn States slow start has been frustrating enough on the field, but the ripple effects are reaching well beyond the scoreboard. A program that usually relies on Beaver Stadiums size and noise as a weekly advantage is now dealing with empty seats, cheaper tickets and a fan base that looks more hesitant than hostile, all while the football operation remains the financial engine for much of the rest of the athletic department.
The timing makes the upcoming USC game feel especially significant, not just as a chance to steady the season but as a measure of whether the atmosphere around the program can rebound with it. Matt Campbell is already under scrutiny in his first stretch on the job, and if Penn State cannot generate momentum soon, the bigger concern may not be one loss or one bad month, but how quickly the strain starts to show everywhere else. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State Faces A White Out Turning Point With Offense Under Pressure
Penn State heads into its third conference game of the 2026 season with USC arriving for the annual White Out, and the timing hardly could be more interesting. The Nittany Lions are trying to steady an offense that has not found enough rhythm on the ground, while the defense is still searching for sharper tackling as the schedule tightens and the stakes keep rising under the lights.
Matt Campbell has already settled on Rocco Becht as the starting quarterback for the stretch run, giving the offense a clear direction as the team tries to put more together in a matchup that always feels bigger than a single Saturday. The White Out has a way of exposing what a team is and what it still has to become, and for Penn State this one looks like a checkpoint for an offense under pressure and a defense that needs to clean up the little things fast. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State White Out Could Test Thin Spots Fans Are Watching
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USC brings its own injury wrinkle into the matchup, with receiver Trent Mosley also marked questionable after sitting out previous games. For Penn State, the bigger issue is less about the headline names than the spots behind them, where absences have already started to stretch the rotation and could matter even more in a game with this kind of stage and pace. [Read more 🡒]