Whether it’s the preseason, the heart of the dual season, or a few days before the NCAA Championships, ask any Penn State wrestler about a specific opponent or a specific match, and more often than not, you’ll get the same response about how they’re just excited to compete and don’t pay too much attention to the rankings or who they’re facing.

In my four years covering the Nittany Lions, I’m still unsure if it’s because of the mindset instilled by Cael Sanderson or just great media relations training.

When asked about his return to Arizona this weekend for the team’s dual at Arizona State Friday night, 133-pounder Roman Bravo-Young stayed on-brand with a casual reply about how it’s “just another match.” In fact, what he’s most excited about this weekend is being able to sleep in his own bed.

“Nothing’s really at hand. It’s just another wrestling match. Just this time, my whole family is going to be there,” he said at the team’s weekly media availability Tuesday. “I’m excited, and it drives me a little bit more to put on a show for them, but it’s just another match…I’m more excited just to get home right after the match.”

Although Friday’s top-ten showdown between the Nittany Lions and Sun Devils might be just another dual to Bravo-Young, Arizona State is anticipating the largest crowd in program history as the reigning four-time national champions pay a visit. And it’s even bigger for his friends and family.

The true sophomore who placed eighth at NCAAs last year said his entire hometown of Sunnyside, a neighborhood within Tucson, is coming out to Desert Financial Arena, which is only 115 miles away. He said it’ll be the first time anyone in his family has seen him in wrestle in person in a Penn State singlet.

“I don’t get why I’d get distracted. They’re just there watching. They watch online anyway,” he said. “It’s obviously a lot to come and fly out here, so people I know who can’t get to the East Coast have had this on the schedule for probably two years now.”

Homecomings like this are nothing new for Penn State wrestling. Every few years, the Nittany Lions’ schedule features home-and-homes with teams in the non-Big Ten states that starters hail from. During the 2016-17 season, for instance, the team went west for a pair of duals against Cal Bakersfield and Stanford in Morgan McIntosh and Nick Nevills’ home state.

Sanderson said he’s been inspired to take these trips because of one his own college Bobby Douglass scheduled while he was competing at Iowa State. The Cyclones traveled to Brigham Young in Sanderson’s home state of Utah for a dual. Sanderson described the experience as being “a lot of fun to wrestle in front of your hometown crowd and home state.”

However, the ever-calculated Sanderson believes there’s more to gain from these duals than just having fun in front of friends and family.

“You want to wrestle well in front of your home crowd,” he said. “But it’s all a test and great practice for [Bravo-Young] to be focused. We have a lot of big matches, and he has very lofty goals, so he’s going to need to be focused throughout his career. This is just another opportunity to practice doing that.”

And while Bravo-Young might not come across as too fazed by the road trip, Sanderson had a bit more to share about what he’s looking forward to.

“It’s Arizona in November. Who doesn’t want to go to Arizona in November? They have In-N-Out Burger,” he said. “After we drop the kids off at the hotel, the coaches might sneak off to In-N-Out Burger.”