Penn State football got throttled in New Ryan Field against Northwestern.

There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The Wildcats stepped on the Nittany Lions’ throats and didn’t let them get so much as a gasp of air.

Some might see the loss as expected after Penn State’s shocking loss to Wisconsin a week ago, but did anyone expect the Nittany Lions to look as lifeless as they did?

“It was a short week. We’re not going to blame the loss on that … in practice and not wanting to get hurt because football’s a long season,” tight end Benjamin Brahmer said postgame. “Don’t want injuries to happen, but I think we’re at a point where we just need to have that physicality in practice and change it up a little bit.”

Physicality.

That’s the word that floated around from player to player as Penn State digested the thumping Northwestern ran on the Nittany Lions.

Campbell felt that the squad handled and flushed the Wisconsin loss well. Whether it’s because of a short week or some lackluster practice sessions, Penn State was simply exposed in one of the harshest ways it’s ever been.

“We look at the memories and you can tell that it’s not the standard. It’s not the standard of what Penn State’s known [for], what it is, what the brand is,” wide receiver Chase Sowell said. “It’s pretty embarrassing, and I think everybody’s taking full accountability [for] that, from the top to the bottom.”

Some of that accountability will have to be shown in the Lasch Building over the next seven days.

When asked for his opinion of Sowell and Brahmer saying practice wasn’t physical enough through the week in preparation for the Wildcats, defensive tackle Siale Taupaki said, “You have your answer.”

It’s one thing for one player to speak on a lack of physicality in practice possibly having an influence on Penn State’s disasterclass. It’s another thing for three different ones in three different position groups to have similar anecdotes.

No matter how well the Nittany Lions think they prepared, though, Northwestern had its way through the entire 60 minutes. It could have been a perfect, physical, hard-worked week of practice, and it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest. Penn State was outplayed and, quite frankly, manhandled in all three phases.

“Obviously, you can’t focus on what just happened in the past week and think about it in this game. At this point, you can’t even worry about the practice that we just had, you have to worry about the next practice that we have,” Cooper Cousins said. “If you dwell on a week of practice, that’s going to keep affecting your process and the team’s process. I think we’re practicing well. I think we’re practicing great.”

It isn’t exactly reassuring for Penn State fans that the players can’t even seem to agree on whether or not the practice regimen is working. The brunt of the Nittany Lions’ Big Ten slate is still to come, with USC and Michigan on deck.

It’s unclear what is exactly causing the lack of intensity for Penn State in the last two weeks. Is it the players? Is it the coaches? Campbell has continuously reinforced that all the right people are in the building, but the puzzle pieces simply haven’t fit to open Big Ten play.

There are, of course, going to be growing pains, but should they be so bad that getting destroyed by Northwestern in primetime is something Penn State fans honestly saw coming?

“Obviously, it was a short week, so it was kind of hard to get things in. But obviously we can’t tell ourselves it’s a short week and feel bad for ourselves,” linebacker Tony Rojas said. “Obviously, they showed it. We just got to get better. Us leaders, we got to make sure that practices ahead are better.”

Rojas then said practice was normal and the focus now is to get better for next week against the Trojans. Those are a lot of differing player opinions on the quality of practice, which are all boldened by the fact that Campbell said the team responded well to the adversity of the Wisconsin loss.

Whatever needs to give in practice for the Nittany Lions to get back in the win column must happen quickly if they want a conference win by their bye week. The weeks are flying by. If practice is already a puzzling subject within the locker room, how can Penn State hope to play a full 60 minutes as a team?

“We’re flying around on the field. We’re hustling as hard as we can. I think just the physicality piece, just got to flip a switch there and just stay together as a whole,” Brahmer said.