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Penn State Coaches Starting to See Football Means More in Happy Valley
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- Penn State Coaches Starting to See Football Means More in Happy Valley
(USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)
Penn State football is expected to meet a standard, and unfortunately, first-year head coach Matt Campbell hasn't lived up to it yet.
There's a lot that we can look at from Campbell's perspective, but the reality is that Penn State just hasn't played the type of football that anybody was expecting it to entering the season.
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As the Nittany Lions look to win some games towards the back end of the season, it was a positive that they came away with a victory against Purdue.
We can say plenty about how bad of a team Purdue is, but I'll take any win at this point, just as I've mentioned a couple of times now. Looking at the last four games of the season, I think there's an argument to be made that Penn State can come away with four wins.
Penn State will take on a pretty good Washington team this Saturday before playing Minnesota, Rutgers, and Maryland. Those last three games are ones that should result in wins.
At the same time, I know fans are still going to be frustrated with everything that's happened throughout the year. If there have been a couple of positives from some of these losses, it's the fact that decision-makers within the program haven't made excuses.
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That includes offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser, who recently went out and admitted that not playing to the level that anybody expects in Happy Valley is not up to the standard.
He admitted that he felt like he was letting a lot of people down, something that is unfortunately true because of how big this fan base is and how much it wants the team to win.
"When you're not winning here, and you're not living up to the standard, you feel like you're letting a lot more people down than just the players, the coaches, like the alumni," Mouser said , per Onward State. "You're like, those people built the standard here that you have to live up to. And when you don't do it, you feel like you're letting everybody down."
"We looked like a real football team at times in the game," Mouser said.
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Penn State football is a lot different than a lot of other college football programs in the country.
With State College being such a small town outside of the university and not having much around there, it's fair to say that people from the area love their Penn State football like nothing else around.
As a result, that comes with a lot of pressure, and it's something that Penn State wasn't able to live up to this season.
Perhaps that can change over the next couple of weeks, but the Nittany Lions have a lot of work to do.
