Penn State football is in a difficult spot. After losing to No. 2 Indiana on Saturday, 27-24, thanks to a last-minute and surreal catch from Omar Cooper Jr., the Nittany Lions are still winless in the Big Ten more than a week into November.

As it would on any college student, the situation has been weighing on Penn State’s team. This team had national championship aspirations heading into the season, after all. These emotions are heightened for the seniors who choose to come back for the 2025 season.

“They’re leading the way, and that’s why I feel so bad for them, because they are doing everything we ask,” Terry Smith said of the seniors after the loss. “They’re working hard, they’re leading the locker room.”

Smith has been thrown into the fire on the field. His first three games as a head coach were against No. 20 Iowa, No. 1 Ohio State, and No. 2 Indiana. Off the field, though, it’s been the same. Smith has been given the task of keeping the team together and still competing.

“He’s a straight-up guy. He calls everybody out. Doesn’t matter who you are, what your role is,” Amare Campbell said of Smith’s leadership style after the Indiana game. “If you’re putting bad stuff on film, or if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, he calls it out.”

Smith constantly brings up effort, effort, and effort, and wants it to be the backbone of this Nittany Lion team.

Despite this, some were still questioning his team’s want to play over the past two weeks. A question answered as the Nittany Lions took Indiana down to the wire on Saturday.

“No one will ever question a Terry Smith team that they don’t play hard,” he said.

A lot of the players echoed this sentiment after the game. Quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer even went off script in the media availability to talk about the team’s effort before answering any questions.

“We just played the No. 2 team in the country, got a top-five offense, top-five defense, and a Heisman contender at quarterback,” Grunkemeyer said. “So just the questions about our buy-in as a team, I think right there, that just goes to show the commitment our team has, the guys in the locker room, that’s just a testament to those guys.”

The emotional effects of this season have weighed on more than just the players, though. Fans and coaches alike are going through the same thing. Hundreds of thousands of people support Penn State; every one of them has emotions towards this season.

It’s easy to let these emotions divide people. Booing the team when they lose, taking to social media to hate someone, or talking in the media about support are easy reactions to have. It’s much harder, but more rewarding, to stick together.

Terry Smith said after losing to Ohio State that Penn State is stuck in a storm and has to get out of it. Today was a test of the Nittany Lion fan base: would they let the storm break them?

“We just got to keep going. Keep chopping at it. The light will shine on us one day,” Offensive lineman Vega Ioane said after practice on Wednesday.

Today, the light shone, even if it was just for a split second, it shone. 105,000 people packed into Beaver Stadium in support of a now 3-6 football team. Not because of the hope of victory, but because that is what Penn State fans do. As the pre-game hype video said before the game, the name on the front is a lot more important than the name on the back.

“I thought the crowd was amazing. I thought they gave great energy. I thought they were loud, I thought they were supportive. I thought they cheered our guys on,” Smith said after the game. “I thought they gave us that extra juice to go for it to motivate us. I couldn’t ask more for them guys, they were they were amazing for me.”

For once this season, Beaver Stadium wasn’t filled with boos, but with cheers. It felt like the Beaver Stadium of past seasons, ones where the air was positive around the team. Until the end, it was loud.

“You know, the fans are great. I appreciate them,” Campbell said. “I appreciate everybody coming to the game. They supported us a lot in the tough loss today. But definitely felt them today.”

Penn State may be in a six-game losing streak, somewhere it has not been since the 2004 season, but there are positives to take away from the past games.

While national championship, playoff, and Big Ten dreams are gone, this team can still be remembered for a long time. As Campbell said after the Indiana game, the Nittany Lions can hang with anyone in the country; they just have to start finishing.