Only the optimists among the fanbase envisioned a season like this happening. Coming off a 7-win season the year prior, and 11 combined wins in two years, the Nittany Lions had everything to prove and not a lot of evidence to show that they’d be able to prove. Yet, prove they did.
Penn State capped off its fourth 10-win season under James Franklin by reclaiming the Land-Grant Trophy on Saturday. Like seemingly all games between the Lions and the Spartans, the game had the ups and downs you’d come to expect, where Penn State started slow, took off, slowed down again, with Michigan State closing the game to within five, then took control once more late in the fourth to put the game away for good.