Consider The Impossible

As controversy swirls around the mighty Michigan juggernaut, Penn State can play the role of avenging vigilante while defying the odds and expectations to save its season.

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Everyone has given up.

Perhaps, like many of your fellow Penn Staters and practically all of the national commentariat, you threw your hands up in disgust as the listless Nittany Lions were pushed around the field in Columbus a few weeks ago and wrote the rest of the season off then and there, resigned to another year of being “great, but not elite.” Maybe you shook off the Ohio State doldrums and held fast to the lingering hope that another shot at a top-four opponent, no matter how daunting the foe, held the potential to revitalize a season full of promise.

Regardless, precious few among even Penn State’s most devoted followers, and practically no one outside the borders of Nittany Nation, holds a rational belief that the home team will triumph this weekend. The prevailing sentiment among our fanbase seems to be an acceptance that PSU missed its best shot at besting the Buckeyes in at least a decade and now faces a far stiffer test against a team that throttled the Lions last season (except in the Smuckers & Skippy-scented halftime tunnel) and boasts a long and brutal history of torturing Penn State in ways both subtle and gross. Those who profess a belief that Penn State will win the game rely heavily on the sort of blind faith that makes sports fandom beautiful.

Vegas certainly favors the Wolverines – the Nittany Lions are home underdogs – and the public money has flowed freely in agreement. Since the loss to Ohio State, the college football media has been unforgiving, to put it mildly, in their assessment of James Franklin-coached Penn State as a legitimate threat to win a game not involving one of the Big Ten’s embarrassingly-numerous doormats. A handful of talking heads will be reluctant to credit Michigan with a quality win should the game get out of hand. Some in Maize and Blue might even agree. To encounter any online discourse from Michigan’s fanbase, Penn State’s defeat has already been designated a formality on the order of beating East Carolina, Bowling Green, or Purdue, just another speed bump on the road to The Game.

It’s hard to argue with the majority who views a Michigan victory as a fait accompli. Dating back to the painful failure to salt away a Rose Bowl win versus USC after the 2016 season, James Franklin’s teams have infamously compiled a worrisome track record of blown leads, fourth-quarter collapses, and late-season swoons. We need not reiterate the unseemly record against ranked competition nor repeat the roll call of gut-wrenching losses. Suffice to say that those for whom James has lost the benefit of the doubt are well within their rights in withholding it.

It may also be that all the well-intentioned excitement around this year’s team has ended up working against them. Early in the year, I wrote about the pent-up anticipation (and accompanying frustration) that’s been building in Happy Valley for decades now, awaiting our return to championship contention, and how this group “damn well better” be the one to finally get it done.  Almost certainly the most talented group Franklin has assembled at Penn State, a favorable schedule that seemed tailor-made for a title run, the final year of the maddeningly elusive four-team playoff field, all of it combined to set up an all-or-nothing shot at a season for the ages, and we pinned these hopes on conquering a seemingly-vulnerable Ohio State at the Horseshoe, where Penn State has only won twice since joining the Big Ten. Perhaps even worse, at least for our national profile, many of the sport’s tastemakers bought in and plopped down next to us on the bandwagon. Now we had sensitive souls staking their reputations on Penn State’s promise, even further elevating the risk of upsetting a crowd that can be as loud and opinionated as they are fickle and dull-witted by falling short of expectations. We pushed our chips to the center of the table and staked it all on the outcome of one game.

When the Nittany Lions went down in flames three weeks ago in Columbus, the meticulously constructed belief of the fanbase went with them. The enthusiastic fervor deflated almost instantly, replaced by the hard, cold acceptance of reversion to the mean. “Here we go again.” The national backlash was even more visceral. “I knew it! I can’t believe I fell for it. James Franklin’s a fraud!” Now, the two-time defending conference champions are breezing through Happy Valley on the way to their fated clash with traditional rival Ohio State to decide the Big Ten title, and any chance for little old also-ran Penn State to slow them down has been written off. We already had our shot to seize the spotlight and rewrite the headlines, and we blew it.

Bottom line: While, technically, nothing is impossible, a Penn State win this weekend feels damned close to it, and if you feel otherwise, it’s on a wing and a prayer. Not ideal!

And yet there is also freedom in having nothing to lose.

Massive expectations bring the burden of incredible pressure. You could feel it mounting with each passing week, as fans grew steadily tenser leading up to the Ohio State game, and it’s not hard to imagine a similar effect pervading the locker room. Nobody wanted to take a beating from the Buckeyes, but having come out on the other side of it, surviving the post-loss hangover against Indiana and once again looking the part of a confident, talented football team in College Park last weekend, the Lions now have the freedom to play fast and loose with the knowledge that less than nothing is expected of them.

Contrast that with the opponent.

There is a fascinating undercurrent to all of this. I am referring, of course, to the gathering storm clouds hovering over Ann Arbor regarding the purported sign-stealing scandal. If you’re reading this column, I’ll assume you’re familiar enough with the basics of what has become one of the zaniest college football stories of my lifetime, maybe ever (threatening to surpass Manti T’eo and his fake girlfriend). For one afternoon, your Penn State Nittany Lions will take on the mantle of America’s Team. Most folks may not be giving them much chance to pull the home upset, but if you’re looking for the Wolverines to get their comeuppance, Penn State at Beaver Stadium is a far better option than Purdue or Maryland. So if there’s any benefit at all to playing with the psychic force of collective ill will toward your adversary at your back, then Penn State will have it.

After back-to-back playoff exits, Michigan entered this season with a clear goal, and for the most part, their season so far has felt more like a coronation than a trial by fire. The Wolverines could breeze through a shooting gallery of cupcakes, dump Big Game James in Happy Valley, and then look to make it three in a row against the only team they care about, probably the only one they’d consider to be worthy of opposing them. And then the scandal. In short order, their glide path back to the postseason has become a minefield. This team, which has faced virtually no on-field adversity, now must take on their toughest challenge yet while navigating uncertainty and ridicule that seem to mount with each passing hour. These crazy circumstances might rally and unify their squad; then again, they might not. Meanwhile, for battle-scarred Penn State, the bottom has already fallen out, and they are free to play unburdened by expectations and with yet everything still in front of them. Recognizing that some help will still be required, one win puts our grandest ambitions back on the table.

Despite all the entertaining and unorthodox twists of the national narrative through this wild year of college football, from Coach Prime speed-running the life cycle of a pop culture fad in about four weeks to Connor Stalions purportedly funding a sophisticated spy ring with a side hustle refurbishing vacuum cleaners (crappily, it seems), Penn State’s season has thus far hewed remarkably close to the script drafted up in the Summer. So much as a cursory scan of the Nittany Lions’ 2023 schedule suggested the Lions were destined for a “two-game season” in which anything less than 11-1 was a disappointment, making a win over at least one of the Big Ten East’s two traditional powerhouses a must. The journey would be long, but the road itself was short. Unlike James Franklin, I don’t have to worry about motivating the team to focus on Rutgers or get up for Michigan State; I can speak plainly about what truly matters most. We have come to the back half of the two-game campaign. Saturday is the season.

The result will either further reinforce or dramatically reshape national perceptions of James Franklin as a coach and Penn State as a program, dictate the legacies of several great Nittany Lions approaching the close of their collegiate careers, and determine exactly how much fun we all get to have over the next several weeks. For as much as all these things are true, Penn State has already been left for dead. There are no more expectations, only to do the impossible or face the void.

If the leadup to Ohio State was about daring to dream about what might be, blending the lessons of the past and promise of the future to embrace the possible, then this weekend’s challenge is to forget about all that nonsense, abandon hope, and live for the moment.

Grill your burgers. Drink your beers. Enjoy your friends and give thanks for the eternal glory of Old State. If you’re fortunate enough to be inside Beaver Stadium at kickoff, scream yourself hoarse for four quarters and show these insufferable interlopers what a homefield advantage should be. We are all taking this thing one play at a time, and at the end, who knows? Maybe the impossible will happen.

Three for the Road:

1. Irrespective of Saturday’s outcome, we will all be scoreboard watching over the next few weeks, hoping for results that put Penn State in the most advantageous position. Issues around the Georgia-Ole Miss game (Saturday’s sideshow to PSU-UM) get a little messy (thanks for nothing, as usual, Texas A&M), but for sure we are all big USC and Utah fans this weekend. Nearly all the fanbases in the country no longer have any skin in the game when it comes to the top 10 and New Year’s Six. Don’t take it for granted that we do.

2. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere this week, but I am actually very glad it does not appear there will a suspension for Jim Harbaugh or any of his assistants for this game. I wouldn’t want a win tainted with any built-in excuses. What’s more, I’m not even sure such suspensions make the most sense. For me, a punishment that fits the “crime” will be one that imposes a competitive disadvantage that offsets the unfair advantage Michigan enjoyed in previous years.

3. There are dozens of factors that will influence the outcome of this game, but do not underestimate the importance of vibes. The longer the game remains close and competitive, the more the crowd will start to buy in, and enthusiasm will build. This will be true for the players’ confidence as well, and eventually team and fans will start feeding off one another. Conversely, the more difficult the game becomes and the longer it drags on, the pressure will intensify on Michigan, increasing the chances of cracking that seemingly impenetrable facade.