Mike Poorman

The minute Matt Rhule and his full Nebraska squad ran out of the visiting team tunnel in Beaver Stadium on Saturday, a little more than an hour before kickoff, the Cornhuskers’ head coach made a beeline for the middle of the field. Rhule was looking for Terry Smith, a fellow former Nittany Lion football player…

The list of Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft’s coaching candidates keeps getting shorter. But the to-do list for Nittany Lion football’s yet-to-be named 17th fulltime head coach remains longer than ever. Ever, as in the history of college football. The last two Nittany Lion head coaches that Penn State hired were announced on Jan.…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Sure, Penn State’s 38-14 loss to the top-ranked Buckeyes here in Ohio Stadium was not what you had hoped for two months ago. Or certainly what you expected. But, it has been that kind of season. A bad season. A really bad season. There are some silver linings. A few. So, we are…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Penn State’s 38-14 loss to Ohio State here in The Horseshoe on Saturday could have been a lot worse. Like 63-14 worse in 2013, when Urban Meyer pressed on the gas pedal and took it to the sanction-decimated Nittany Lions and Bill O’Brien to the bitter end. Like Penn State’s 45-6 loss…

Penn State’s game at Ohio State on Saturday in The Horseshoe will be a homecoming of sorts for Nittany Lions defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who was hired away from the Buckeyes back in January. But, we probably won’t be seeing a TV adaption of it on the Hallmark Channel any time soon. As the Buckeyes’…

How difficult is Terry Smith’s job as Penn State’s interim head coach, taking his on-the-ropes 3-4 Nittany Lions to The Horseshoe to face undefeated and top-ranked Ohio State? Well, Penn State has done it before. And won. Twice, in somewhat similar circumstances — in 1964 and 2011. That has to provide some hope for Smith…

IOWA CITY, IOWA — Penn State and Iowa almost always play it close. Five of their last seven games have been decided by six points or less. Including here on Saturday night. So, yes, the final score was pretty par for the course: The Hawkeyes won 25-24, overcoming a 21-10 lead as their quarterback Matt Gronowski…

IOWA CITY, IOWA — Iowa Nice. After spending parts of Friday inside Kinnick Stadium, walking the massive and bucolic University of Iowa riverside campus, and hanging out downtown, that’s my biggest takeaway in advance of Saturday’s 6 p.m. local/7 p.m. Eastern game between the Hawkeyes and the Nittany Lions. Forgot to feed the parking meter…

And just like that, after 4,293 days and $80 million, James Franklin is gone. He was the Nittany Lions’ head coach in the national title hunt until — poof, in a matter of a mere handful of painstaking, gut-wrenching days — he wasn’t. Franklin came to an unsteady Happy Valley on Jan. 11, 2014 wanting…