As you might recall, or might be trying to forget, Penn State’s defense was gashed for 418 yards on the ground last year against Michigan. It was 34 yards of shying the program record of 452 yards given up against Michigan State in 1997.
But it was more than that. It’s telling. A story of things not forgotten and experiences that shape the future. Ask Penn State linebacker Kobe King how often he has heard the number 418 and he says ‘once….twice’ but even now more than a year removed from that day he still knows what you’re talking about. There’s no thinking about it; he knows what 418 represents. In a world where Penn State tries to frame so many things in the here and now, there’s little doubt that Penn State’s defense knows what 418 means, even if it goes unsaid.
“We kind of took it as a chip on our shoulder,” King said after practice on Wednesday. “I will say the run game has been the biggest thing that we’ve improved on. There’s still areas that we can correct but I will say it’s a part of our defense that we take pride in. We don’t want anybody to run around on our defense.”
As a result, Penn State is now the No. 2 rushing defense in the nation, the highest it has been ranked since finishing the 2014 season No. 3. Even prior to that, Penn State has generally been a good rushing defense, spending the better part of the last decade or more in the Top 25 of rushing defenses. All the same, nothing makes you improve like getting embarrassed; nothing lights a fire like proving you’re better than people think.
All of this feeds into Saturday and the fact if you were going to make a list of reasons away from the football field itself to bet on Penn State against the Wolverines, that would be a good starting point. The Nittany Lions are a team with something to prove not long removed from a bad offensive performance against Ohio State, further removed from Michigan being the more physical team a year ago. They’ve been tested far more than the Wolverines in 2023, battling through adversity on the field and battling through the emotions of defeat off of it. Penn State might have its flaws but it doesn’t lack shared experiences at this point of the year.
Meanwhile, Michigan sits undefeated heading into its first real test of the year, bringing with it endless off-the-field distractions. It might not be the difference maker when Saturday comes to a close, but if you’re comparing teams for what they’ve had to go through this season it’s Penn State taking home the honors in terms of legitimate adversity faced.
The question for head coach James Franklin is which buttons you push when there are so many to choose from. That answer is a bit of a secret, and also a bit of an art form.
“It’s interesting because, as you can imagine over nine years, I’ve tried about everything,” Franklin said of motivating a team. “You try to keep the approach as consistent and steady as we can. After wins coaching the guys really hard so there’s no complacency kind of seeping into the program. Try to keep things as consistent as possible. But then there’s different kind of methods and models that we’ve used over over nine years trying to kind of figure out the best way to do it.
“And then the other challenge is that every team is different. So maybe something you’ve done two years ago, maybe that wasn’t the right thing for that team, but maybe it is for this team. So just trying to kind of understand the temperament of the team and that’s where the Leadership Council comes in, or the captains come in to kind of get a feel where they’re at with things. I met with the captains, I think it was Tuesday, before practice. Theo [Johnson] kind of had some comments to the offense as well. Keaton Ellis had some comments to the defense and I thought they were good messages overall. But that’s constantly what I’m trying to do, what I stay up late thinking about or early in the morning. Thinking about discussions. I went in with the defensive staff and kind of talked about some things from a strategy standpoint. This morning with Manny [Diaz] and the defensive staff. Just trying to find any little advantage we can. That’s gonna give us a chance to get a win on Saturday so that’s what the entire week is about.”
The margins are small, and Penn State is hoping this time they cut in favor of the Nittany Lions. Safe to say they aren’t short on reasons to bring their A-game this Saturday.
