Stunned by season's first loss, Nittany Lions vow to bounce back

MINNEAPOLIS - Journey Brown echoed the words of his coach.

Not far from the small media room he sat in, the running back’s teammates and coaches were hurting. Coming up on the losing end of a 31-26 decision at No. 13-ranked Minnesota, Penn State’s 8-0 season suffered its first blemish.

And Brown and the rest of the Nittany Lions were having trouble coming to grips with it.

“We were rolling. So just to have a season that we have going and then to take an L like that at this time, it hurts, especially for the old guys,” Brown said. “Some of these guys, it's their last season, and so they're going to feel it a little bit more. For me, I try to be a leader and try to not show it, but I'm definitely feeling it just as hard as everybody else.”

A start to the season that few would have anticipated, that the Nittany Lions saw their first loss come in the ninth game, as the nation’s No. 4-ranked team in the initial College Football Playoff ranking, left them searching for answers afterward.

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The game saw Minnesota produce the year’s first first-quarter touchdown against Penn State’s defense and the most points allowed in any game on the season. For the first time all season, the Nittany Lion defense was also limited to just one sack on the afternoon, one that wouldn’t come until the game’s final minutes. And Penn State’s passing defense, one dependent on the pass rush that never had time to materialize, suffered. As a result, Minnesota quarterback Tanner Morgan completed 18 of 20 passes for 339 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions.

Offensively, the fast starts that had marked Penn State’s previous outings disappeared, the Nittany Lions falling behind 24-10 before trailing by 11 at the half. And for all of Penn State’s explosive playmakers producing 17 chunk plays for the afternoon, 12 through the passing game and another five on the ground, only one of them finished in the end zone. Making matters worse for the Nittany Lions, multiple dropped passes and three Sean Clifford interceptions, all deep in Minnesota territory, proved devastatingly costly.

For Penn State head coach James Franklin, in addressing the new reality of the 2019 season for the Nittany Lions, that meant avoiding the mistakes of his coaching career in the past.

“One of the things that I'm trying to do a better job as I mature and grow professionally is, I made some mistakes where I go into the locker room after tough losses, and you point out the mistakes,” Franklin said. “It's not the time for that. Emotions are raw. The feelings are raw. There are kids telling me they're sorry and stuff. There's no reason for them to say sorry to me. They give their blood, sweat, and tears to this university, and to this community, and to this program. There's a lot of hurting guys in there; coaches, players, everybody that's involved. I know the fans are hurting and I get it. I do. So what I tried to do today was not do that.”

Instead, Franklin offered a message resonant with the players that came out and were willing to take questions from the media following the game.

Determined to correct the mistakes that show up on the tape in practice on Sunday, the head coach looked for the value that could come from the experience for the group.

“I did tell them that everything in life is a learning opportunity. And to take a minute and allow, take a deep breath, but allow this feeling a little bit. Have the feeling, don't block it; have the feeling and everything can be used for fuel,” Franklin said. “I think we work really hard. I think we prepare extremely well. But we can get better. There's no doubt about it. That's all of us, that's everybody. We can get better. But we need to use this emotion and this feeling as fuel moving forward. It's very important that we put it to bed tomorrow and move on because I think there have been times where we haven't moved on from losses. And I think part of is how I've handled the locker room sometimes.”

For Brown and many of the Nittany Lions, that process is already underway.

Leaning on the experiences that brought the program into the game unbeaten, the running back said simply that the attitude and perspective of the year have not been upended by the unfavorable result.

“You gotta stay positive. That's what my mom and my grandma, that's what the people that raised me taught me. Even through the hard stuff,” Brown said. “So like I said, we're gonna let this sink in, let this marinate a little bit, and then get in tomorrow after we watch film and stuff and coach says drop it, it is going to be dropped.

“Now we're going to have that 1-0 mentality like we had the whole season. Nothing's going to change in us, you know? Just because this happened, we're still Penn State football, and we're going to still do what got us to this point.”

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