There’s no way of sugarcoating it; this is one of the most uncertain times in Penn State football’s long and storied history.

As of Tuesday night, they have an FBS-low four commits just one day before National Signing Day. A once-top 20 recruiting class has entirely fizzled in the aftermath of James Franklin’s firing in October, and Penn State may struggle to get any of its remaining commits to sign on the dotted line on Wednesday.

Further uncertainty comes in the head coaching search, which, despite rumors piling up, has not yielded the new face of Penn State football. Athletic director Pat Kraft set high expectations for the search after firing Franklin, but there’s a general uneasiness as more jobs fill up and the brutal offseason calendar rolls along.

It’s hard to feel positive about the state of the program right now, and I get it. With all this uncertainty with the roster, coaching staff, and incoming recruits, it’s hard to think of the bigger picture. But if you’re willing to, look at the regular season finale in Piscataway.

Despite a lackluster defensive effort, Penn State reached bowl eligibility with a 40-36 win over Rutgers. It’s the 18th consecutive victory in the series for the Nittany Lions and improves the overall record to 33-2, with one of the defeats coming in 1918.

While any loss like that would be gutwrenching to anyone, it seems to have stung Rutgers fans to a great degree. For one, it was the first time in the Big Ten era that Rutgers scored more than 10 points against Penn State, combining to score 55 points total from 2014-24.

It was just the second meeting of the last 30 years to be decided by single digits, as well. When you add in the fact that the game moved Penn State to 15-0 all-time when playing Rutgers on the road? It would’ve been a historic victory for the Scarlet Knights, all told, even if it was against a 5-6 Penn State team in more chaos than ever. Some writers even phrased it as a missed opportunity for the team’s biggest victory, in general, since joining the Big Ten in 2014. Bowl eligibility is an accomplishment for them.

In normal situations, it’s just ho-hum, but when you factor in the relative obsession that Rutgers has with Penn State, you start to understand. After all, they don’t just chant “F— Penn State” on third downs when they’re playing the Nittany Lions; they do it every game. The chant is also done in other sports, even when playing completely different teams.

The closest thing Penn State fans do to this is The Roar Zone’s “Michigan still sucks” chant in the final minute of each period, but it’s restricted to hockey (where Michigan is a national powerhouse) and is a term utilized by other fanbases in many situations.

Penn State prides itself on being “unrivaled”, but we all know that’s not totally true. There’s disdain for teams like Michigan, Ohio State, and Pitt. There are sport-specific rivalries with Iowa in wrestling, Michigan State and Minnesota in hockey, and others that pop up every so often.

But no rivalry just feels like the other team is living rent-free in your head. There’s more mutual disdain, even if some of these rivalries are as uncompetitive as the “Penn State-Rutgers rivalry”. Between those two teams, it just feels more like unbridled hatred from one side in a regional rivalry that’s rarely competitive.

But how would you feel if Penn State beat one of their rivals, having an incredibly down year, like the situation Rutgers was in? You’d relish in it, sure, but it wouldn’t be this monstrous victory. Penn State football hasn’t beaten Ohio State in almost a decade, but would it hit the same if they were as broken and spiraling as Penn State is right now?

All in all, it’s nice to expect more. The way everything’s played out is because the administration and the fanbase expect more. The all-in season that went up in smoke led to Franklin’s dismissal because everyone expected more.

While the optics look bad on the coaching search, it hasn’t been because of a lack of trying. You don’t always achieve your expectations, but all of this started because Penn State wasn’t content with perennially coming up short.

We don’t know if the expectations will ever be reached, but it can definitely be worse. The worst thing in sports is irrelevance.