Like many of you, my mind went back to the early 2000s during Penn State’s dismal 35-19 loss to Maryland. As I reluctantly watched the clock mercifully tick down to all zeroes, I had a feeling that I hadn’t felt since watching games of that era as Penn State often stumbled towards defeat on a weekly basis.
It was the memory of coming away with one positive takeaway from an overall listless performance. It was the memory of Bryant Johnson lighting up a secondary, Tamba Hali with three sacks and having a particularly disruptive day, or Alan Zemaitis outperforming everyone else on the field that afternoon.