Tad Stryker: Get-Right Night for Penn State

Even in a season where growth has been evident, every so often, Nebraska gets a reminder of just how far it has to go to become a good football team in the trenches. It happened again Saturday night in Happy Valley, when the Huskers got pushed around by Penn State.

Nebraska played the role of hapless victim on “Get Right Night” for the Nittany Lions. At best, the Cornhuskers were background noise with NBC’s announcers openly rooting for Katron Allen and Nicholas Singleton to set career rushing and scoring records in front of their home crowd on Senior Night and supporting acting head coach Terry Smith to be hired permanently.

Almost from the outset, the Nittany Lions looked like they were ready to go off in search of their lost season. By the middle of the first quarter, they appeared to have found it. Their athletic ability was far beyond what the Huskers could bring to bear. They piled up 254 total yards by halftime and ended with 412, much less than they could have had if Smith hadn’t taken his foot off the accelerator. All in all, it was a discouraging lack of execution in all three phases coming off a bye week for NU.

It was a night to forget for the Huskers, who fall to 7-4 overall and 4-4 in the Big Ten. Even Nebraska’s special teams, which have been a highlight for much of the season, looked lost, especially right before halftime, when the Husker freshman Archie Wilson punted from his own 3-yard line and the Lions returned it 21 yards to the Husker 28. Adding to the damage, Wilson was flagged for a late hit that moved the ball to the 14. Three plays later, the Lions scored to go up 23-3 and eliminate all doubt.

Kaytron Allen scores during the fourth quarter. He became Penn State's all-time leading rusher Saturday night. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

Penn State’s successful fake punt in the fourth quarter finished an ineffective night for Mike Ekeler and the Husker kicking game, which has lost much of the momentum it built in the first half of the season.

But even a good kicking game wouldn’t have changed much about this contest, which amounted to one good running back going up against two good running backs and one mediocre offensive line against an excellent one. In the matchup of freshman quarterbacks, Penn State’s Ethan Grunkemeyer looked a lot farther along than Nebraska’s TJ Lateef. Grunkemeyer completed 11 of 12 passes for 181 yards and a touchdown. Lateef was bedeviled by a good pass rush, sacked three times and was reduced to throwing short checkdowns most of the night. He finished 21 of 37 for 187 yards — just five yards per attempt — and put very little pressure on the defense.

Penn State (5-6, 2-6) has been through a curiously horrible year, playing far below its talent level, but that didn’t seem to matter at all on this night, because it has clearly superior athletes to Nebraska, especially in the trenches.The NIttany Lions didn’t punt until the four-minute mark of the third quarter. The Nebraska defense was bewildered and out-leveraged.

It seemed likely that the Blackshirts would prove to be too light in the pants to stay with the Nittany Lions, which was true, but that didn’t turn out to be their main problem. It was lack of quickness to the edge that cost the Huskers time and again against Allen and Singleton. All in all, it was a bad night for the Huskers’ front seven, and nothing to write home about for the secondary, who never came close to disrupting anything when the Lions went to the pass, which wasn’t often. Penn State chewed up more than 200 yards running the ball even if you disregard the 26 they got on their fake punt.

On offense, the Huskers ran the ball successfully at times, but were sporadic, and had trouble getting the job done in the red zone. Whatever UCLA offensive coordinator Jerry Neuheisel and quarterback Nico Iamaleava discovered to pile up 42 points and 435 total yards against Penn State in October completely eluded Dana Holgorsen and Lateef in November.

Corcoran Lateef — Nittany Lions defensive end pressures TJ Lateef during the fourth quarter at Beaver Stadium. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

Penn State’s defense prioritized slowing down Emmett Johnson, and was unconcerned about Lateef. Johnson gained half of his 103 rushing yards on one play — a 52-yard jaunt on the game’s opening drive that went for naught because he was stopped on fourth-and-one from the Penn State 2-yard line. On the opening drive, the Huskers looked like they belonged on the same field with Penn State, but after getting stuffed at the doorstep, they faded into the background. The rest of the game belonged to the Nittany Lions.

It was obvious that in his third season, Rhule’s Huskers don’t compare well yet to a team with Top 10 talent. The good news is that they didn’t sustain any more injuries for their home finale on Black Friday against Iowa, a team they should match up much better against as they try to become the first Husker squad since Bo Pelini’s 2013 team to go an entire season without losing consecutive games.

Resilience has been a hallmark of the 2025 Cornhuskers. They’ll need a large dose of that to beat Iowa in Lincoln for the first time in 14 years.

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