It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Penn State football was on the brink of the national championship game and returning most key contributors. Penn State men’s hockey made a dream run to the Frozen Four, returned almost all of their scoring, and added the greatest recruit in Penn State history. Women’s volleyball was coming off a national championship.

Even other sports that didn’t enjoy the same spotlight were thriving. Baseball had its best season in two decades. Men’s lacrosse made the national semifinals. And even sports with bleak seasons, like both men’s and women’s basketball, had a glimmer of hope with highly-regarded recruits and transfers.

It was supposed to be a golden year for the Penn State athletic program, a year where we see multiple banners raised, memories made, and names etched into history. Instead, 2025-26 will go down as a tremendous what-if, a year of high expectations and crippling disappointment.

Almost every program either failed to capitalize on last year’s momentum or backslid inconceivably. The only two exemptions of sports whose seasons are completed (meaning baseball, softball, men’s volleyball, and both men’s and women’s lacrosse still have chances at redemption) are wrestling and women’s hockey. Cael Sanderson’s group won another national title, and Jeff Kempersal led the women’s hockey team to its first-ever Frozen Four.

As for the rest? It was a rough year. Here are some of the biggest examples of a very tumultuous year for Penn State Athletics.

Football

Plenty of ink has been spilled about what happened to Penn State football in 2025. Entering the season following a CFP Semifinal run as the No. 2 team in the AP Poll with plenty of returning talent, it was expected to be a fun year.

There were warning signs with the team’s substandard performance against a weak non-conference schedule, but they were largely ignored heading into late September’s White Out against Oregon. That game itself was a whirlwind of emotions, from the overturned fumble to the 17-3 deficit; it felt like more of the same.

But then the Nittany Lions punched back and forced overtime. At one point, they were a fourth down stop away from the signature win they needed. Alas, that didn’t happen, and a few plays later, Drew Allar threw an interception in double overtime in what proved to be the play that effectively ended the James Franklin era. Two shocking losses to UCLA and Northwestern later, the longtime head coach was fired on October 12.

The season entered a tailspin, featuring a six-game losing streak that saw a blown 11-point lead on the road against Iowa and a heartbreaking loss at Beaver Stadium to the eventual national champions. Interim head coach Terry Smith was able to end this season from hell on a high note, rallying the troops to a season-ending four-game winning streak and a win at the Pinstripe Bowl.

One mass exodus of players and recruits, a long and chaotic coaching search, and 50 transfers later, we enter 2026 with new optimism in the start of the Matt Campbell era. At least it can’t possibly get worse than 2025.

Men’s Hockey

Similar to football, there was legitimate hype for Penn State men’s hockey heading into the 2025-26 season to not only repeat its Frozen Four feat, but win the program’s first national championship. They were odds-on favorites for several months.

The team lost a lot of veteran leadership and star goalie Arsenii Sergeev, but returned almost all of its offensive production while adding a plethora of CHL talent, headlined by Columbus Blue Jackets first-round pick Jackson Smith and projected No. 1 overall pick in 2026, Gavin McKenna.

The season started with a road sweep against a then-ranked Arizona State team and kept trucking from there. There were speed bumps along the way, namely some inconsistent non-conference play and a beatdown at Pegula Ice Arena by No. 1 Michigan, but the Nittany Lions went into the holiday break with everything still in front of them. They were even getting Aiden Fink and Cade Christenson back from long-term injuries.

The team came out of the holiday break on fire, feasting on a softened schedule. McKenna was finally breaking out, it was fielding full lineups, and it got the chance to play in front of nearly 75,000 at Beaver Stadium in an overtime loss to No. 2 Michigan State.

But here’s the thing. Those injuries came back ferociously. Charlie Cerrato went down early in the second half. Bottom six contributors Alex Servagno, Nick Fascia, and Braeden Ford missed significant time. Captain Dane Dowiak suffered a season-ending injury in early February. While Penn State would eventually get some of these players back, it would play several games dressing one or two skaters short.

Those injuries hung a dark cloud over the team’s ambitions, and coupled with criminal charges popping up for an altercation between McKenna and an intoxicated student in downtown State College in early February, things were heading in the wrong direction. The regular season ended with a whimper, losing three of their last four games and going from fighting for a No. 1 seed to fighting to stay in the NCAA Tournament field at all.

The Nittany Lions would make it in, but were unceremoniously discarded last Friday in Albany against Minnesota-Duluth. In the all-in year, they came up short of last year’s miraculous run. This might’ve been their best shot, as several key contributors are moving on to the NHL, and Guy Gadowsky’s crew will suddenly have a very different roster heading into next season.

Women’s Volleyball

It was expected there would be a slight backslide for Penn State women’s volleyball this season. An incredible run to the program’s eighth national championship in 2024 was built on a lot of senior talent, including All-American Jess Mruzik. Still, there were high hopes for 2025, as the team was ranked No. 2 coming in.

There were some early bumps in the road with an incredibly hard non-conference slate awaiting the reigning champs, but the biggest blow to the season came just as the Rec Hall home opener against Kentucky kicked off. All-American sophomore Izzy Starck stepped away from the sport for mental health purposes, and she would not play for the remainder of the season, eventually transferring to Pittsburgh after the season.

It was a hard pill to swallow for Katie Schumacher-Cawley and her group, who were up-and-down for the remainder of the season and finished tied for sixth in the Big Ten standings at 12-8. Penn State continued its NCAA Tournament streak, but lost its historic ranked streak and was unceremoniously swept by Texas in the second round, a big and disappointing step back.

Men’s & Women’s Basketball

There weren’t high expectations for either men’s or women’s basketball in 2025-26, but there was optimism for a brighter future.

The Lady Lions successfully retained two starters after forays into the transfer portal and added a dynamic guard from Big Ten rival Rutgers in Kiyomi McMiller, who would do her part all season by producing one of the most prolific scoring seasons in program history.

The problem was that, aside from her and Gracie Merkle, the team struggled to score enough to keep up with opponents and got pummeled in Big Ten play once again. After a 1-17 conference record in 2024-25, there was improvement, but the Lady Lions went just 4-16 in conference play this time, finishing 16th in the Big Ten and missing the conference tournament for the second straight year. It cost Carolyn Kieger her job, marking another head coach fired.

The men’s team had optimism based on its youth, namely Kayden Mingo. The top-ranked recruit in program history led a very large freshman class that flashed potential in a weak non-conference slate, but endured a great deal of growing pains along the way. There were tantalizing close calls against top-10 rivals in Michigan and Michigan State, but they lacked the punch to get the job done.

A last-place finish in conference play made for a miserable year. When you couple that with coming agonizingly close to landing the commitment of five-star prospect Dylan Mingo, the younger brother of Kayden, it was a very rough year for Mike Rhoades and company. This year was expected to be a challenge, so the grace period won’t be for much longer.

Men’s & Women’s Soccer

2024 was a rough year for Penn State men’s soccer under head coach Jeff Cook, but the coach and the program had a track record of success entering that season, so a turnaround wouldn’t have surprised anyone.

But that isn’t what we saw. Men’s soccer went 5-8-4 and scored just eight goals in 10 Big Ten games. Its 1-6-3 finish in conference play was the worst in 14 years, and while Cook wasn’t on the chopping block, he stepped down after the season to pursue a professional opportunity. Here’s hoping a new era of soccer behind former national champion coach Rob Dow starts the turnaround.

Women’s soccer was still pretty good, but it was considered to underachieve based on its own incredibly high standards, similar in a way to women’s volleyball. After all, it’s only failed to win a game in the NCAA Tournament twice in program history (1997, 2008), something it did this year.

But it was an oddly challenging year. After a run to the NCAA Quarterfinals in 2024, Penn State only managed to make the second round this year with a 10-8-3 record, only going 5-4-2 in Big Ten play. Regular season-wise, it’s one of the worst in program history, even if it would be a banner season for a lot of other teams.

That’s what’s been the storyline for this year. Not living up to high expectations.

Field Hockey

Another proud program, Penn State field hockey hovered around .500 in its first two seasons under head coach Lisa Bervinchak Love, but struggled in 2025, going 7-10 and 2-6 in Big Ten play. For a program that, prior to longtime coach Charlene Morett-Curtiss’s resignation after 2022, had rarely missed the NCAA Tournament, a third straight year of no postseason was hard to swallow.

Only twice in the previous 55 years did they register a winning percentage that low (2009, 2019), and it cost Love her job, as the program has handed the keys to former Saint Joseph’s coach Hannah Prince for the 2026 season, hoping to turn things around.

Overall Thoughts

As stated earlier, it wasn’t all bad with the successes of wrestling and women’s hockey. Penn State is also fielding ranked teams in both men’s and women’s fencing, volleyball, gymnastics, and lacrosse. Softball is enjoying one of its better seasons, even as it has gotten off to a choppy start to Big Ten play. There’s light, even in darkness.

There’s going to be a lot of change leading these athletic programs. While some are or already have stepped down, like in the case of Cook and legendary Penn State men’s volleyball coach Mark Pavlik, several more were relieved of their duties across football, women’s basketball, and field hockey.

This is what happens when high expectations yield substandard results. That is the mantra under Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft, who has not been afraid to eat buyout money as he pursues new opportunities to fund the athletic department, particularly by switching Penn State to an Adidas school.

Expectations will naturally not be as high next year, but it has to go better than this one. Not just for the fans, but for the administration.