Senior linebacker Mike Hull has seen just about everything you could hope to see –and not see– during his career. New coaches, sanctions, bumps and bruises, transfers, four defensive coordinators.
So one loss isn’t about to bring him to his knees.
“I think everyone’s done a good job of handling last week’s game,” Hull said Tuesday. “We came in on Sunday and kind of pushed the reset button. We’re ready to work out our kinks during the bye week.”
Penn State’s first bye-week will include a modified schedule. Practice Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday before coaches head out to recruit Thursday-Saturday. It’ll be a much needed break for both players and coaches as they look to hit the reset button after a frantic 4-1 start to the year.
And after flying across the world, flying back, traveling to New Jersey and then playing two weeks at home there was plenty of adversity to be had. In many ways, losing finally gets a little less pressure off of the team. The Nittany Lions playing well but not well enough to simply walk through a schedule without hitting bumps in the road.
“Our coaches said it perfectly, how many teams go undefeated throughout an entire season?” Hull said. “You’re gonna have some adversity. It’s how you respond to it.”
So far it’s hard to imagine Hull playing much better than he has so far. 32 solo tackles along with 53 total tackles to his name leads Penn State by 30 tackles ahead of safety Ryan Keiser.
For the rest of the team though the bye week will be an important time to work on all the issues that have plagued the Nittany Lions since week one. The offensive line will continue to fight through a steep learning curve, quarterback Christian Hackenberg will continue to work with his receivers.
With only two games in the month of October, there couldn’t be a better time to have the time to work on fixing things.
“We are just going to work hard,” Keiser said. “We are going to give our best every day at practice like we do every week. We are just going to keep being critical of ourselves and improving.”
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