UNIVERSITY PARK — It is safe to say that October 2025 was a historically bad month for the Penn State football team.
The Nittany Lions lost three of the four games in their current four-game losing streak — two of them by one point and the other by five points. Their three-year senior starting quarterback, Drew Allar, was injured and lost for the season and head coach James Franklin was fired after the 22-21 loss to Northwestern.
The next week, in interim head coach Terry Smith’s first game on the sidelines, the Iowa Hawkeyes outscored the Lions 15-3 down the stretch in a crushing, 25-24 victory.
The month will thankfully end before Penn State’s next game, although that next game will take place in Columbus, Ohio against arch-rival and No. 1 Ohio State on Nov. 1.
Ohio State is 7-0 so far and coming off a 34-0 victory over Wisconsin two weeks ago. The Buckeyes are led by quarterback Julian Sayin who has thrown for 1872 yards and 19 touchdowns this season with an 80% completion rate. Sayin is helped by two elite wide receivers in Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate and running back Bo Jackson gained 433 yards and scored two touchdowns. Smith has a total of 602 yards receiving with 7 touchdowns.
Defensively, the Buckeyes have the nation’s best scoring defense at just 5.9 points per game, and then also rank No. 1 in the FBS in red-zone defense and third-down defense.
Ohio State began the season with a 14-7 victory over Texas, and since then the Buckeyes have not really been challenged.
They beat Illinois, 34-16, on Oct. 11, which was the closest game, but then came back the next week with a 34-0 trouncing of Wisconsin.
In the Wisconsin game, Sayin threw for 393 yards and 4 touchdowns, while the defense held the Badgers to just 54 yards passing with an interception.
The score was 17-0 at halftime and 27-0 going into the fourth quarter.
The Buckeyes are peaking as they head into their final five games of the regular season.
Penn State is likely going through some major revamping as Smith takes over and tries to reestablish the team’s confidence and physical presence on the field.
The Nittany Lions will be coming off a bye week, and any major changes on offense and defense remain to be seen.
Against Iowa, the Lions were ahead until a two-play, 75-yard drive put them behind 25-24.
There was still 3:46 to play, though, and Penn State took the ball and marched to the 49-yard line with just a field goal needed to win.
But then a 3-and-5 play gained just a yard, and Ethan Grunkemeyer’s fourth-down pass fell incomplete.
Now, the PSU offense — Grunkemeyer, Kaytron Allen, Nicholas Singleton, Devonte Ross, the offensive line and everyone else — will be facing one of the best defenses in the country. How they respond and their ability to move the ball will be important indicators for the rest of the season.
Coming into the game, Penn State is a 20+ point underdog, but this is a rivalry game and there are a myriad of questions surrounding the Nittany Lions.
And it looks like we will be getting answers to some, or possibly many, of those questions.
Kickoff is at 12 p.m. from Ohio Stadium.
