Penn State’s season has already turned into a problem that reaches beyond the scoreboard.
The Nittany Lions are 0-2 in Big Ten play after stumbling through their first two conference games, and the early 3-0 start against nonconference pushovers doesn’t mean much now. With No. 18 USC coming to Beaver Stadium on Saturday night for the White Out game, Penn State is staring at a real chance to fall to 0-3 in the league.
That backdrop is why the recent “Hey, Bob!” mailbag has taken on a sharper edge. Some of the questions came loaded with frustration, and for good reason.
One reader from Harrisburg asked whether a senior-heavy Penn State team with a good leader can still bounce back after a bad outing. The answer was yes - but with a major caveat. What stood out most was not just the 10-point fourth-quarter collapse at home against Wisconsin, but the flat, lifeless showing at Northwestern last Friday.
There is still a path for Penn State to settle itself, but that has to start with the leaders, beginning with Rocco Becht, showing up against USC.
Another longtime fan from Philadelphia put the broader concerns on the table: Was Matt Campbell in over his head in the Big Ten? Did Penn State make a mistake firing James Franklin? And where does Pat Kraft go from here?
The Northwestern loss was called an embarrassing effort, though the 2025 UCLA road loss was still considered worse. Northwestern was expected to be one of the better Big Ten teams by season’s end, but Penn State offered very little resistance.
Campbell has won at Toledo and Iowa State, but a Penn State overhaul is not going to happen overnight. What Curt Cignetti is doing at Indiana is not the standard. In the short term, Campbell has to make sure the Lions never disappear like they did against Northwestern.
The roster issues are real. Penn State doesn’t have much speed on offense once you get past injured wide receiver Koby Howard, and the offensive line should improve.
But the bigger problems are on defense. Outside of linebacker Tony Rojas and the top cornerbacks, the question is simple: who are the playmakers?
The season-ending injury to edge rusher Matt Granville was described as a bigger deal than most people realize.
As for Franklin, the view was that his time was up last season and that the relationship had grown stale after 12 years.
The pressure isn’t limited to the sideline, either. A reader from Scranton asked how the football team’s performance affects Pat Kraft’s future, and the answer was direct: it absolutely matters.
The $700 million renovation of Beaver Stadium hangs over the program and over Kraft. Penn State is 10-9 in its last 19 games, and in the Big Ten, that kind of stretch is not going to sit well for long. The rest of the athletic department doesn’t cover the bills, and the Lions can’t keep living in the middle of the conference pack.
With tickets, parking, food and beverages all costing plenty, the expectations are obvious. Kraft’s seat gets warmer with every loss.
In Other News...
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
Penn States first Big Ten availability report of the week offered a familiar mix of good news and lingering uncertainty ahead of USCs visit, with the White Out spotlight already fixed on the Nittany Lions depth. Linebacker Alex Tatsch and defensive lineman Armstrong Nnodim were both listed as questionable because of prior injuries, while Cam Smith remains out and receiver Koby Howard is set to miss his third Big Ten game.
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 🡒]