Sometimes, when you’re in the doldrums as a team, you need to strip away the extenuating circumstances and get back to the fundamentals of why you play the game.

For Penn State football, it’s not about winning a national title this season (or even competing for one, for that matter). That ship has sailed. It’s about having fun, sticking together, and playing for one another, starting when the team returns from its bye week on Saturday against Purdue.

“We self-scouted ourselves a lot,” Matt Campbell said Tuesday. “And really gave us a great opportunity to give that information back to our players and videotape evidence of what we’re saying, rather than just saying it, both individually and collectively.”

Reflection and self-scouting were clear themes as the team tries to respond to a rough 0-4 start to Big Ten play.

Two of the team’s best performers so far, star linebacker Tony Rojas and top wide receiver Chase Sowell, were no exception.

“I think I’ve been playing at a good level,” Rojas said. “Obviously, I’m kind of hard on myself, so I know I have a lot to improve on, a lot of things to work on during the bye week and going forward.”

“I was very excited to see that it was a career day and all that type of stuff, but obviously I wanted to win, so it wasn’t the best feeling,” Sowell said, reflecting on his exceptional day at the Big House in Week 7. “I feel like I could have done more. Like I said after the game, there were plays I wish I could have back.”

After the bye week, the Nittany Lions have a lot to improve.

Penn State wants to get quarterback Rocco Becht back on track after a rough start to Big Ten play; it wants to get its pass rush going after the defensive line was shut out in four consecutive games; it wants to tighten up its run defense with the front seven, and it wants to open up the run game, among other things.

It’s a lot for a team that’s faced so much outside criticism up to this point.

That outside criticism, whether fair or not, is something everyone in the building is trying to keep out and focus on themselves.

“I’d be naive to say there haven’t been some really frustrating moments and some moments where you’re disappointed in terms of where you are or where you want to be, no different than our fan base and no different than the people who care about Penn State football,” Campbell said.

“But the reality of it is the confidence and belief in terms of the vision of where you want to go and what it needs to look like, not only you’re going to do it, but do it in sustained, true success over a long period of time, and that’s hard to find in football anywhere.”

The team knows it has to stay together down the stretch and play with the joy and gratitude that come with playing high-level college football.

“I think the biggest thing is just having fun,” Rojas said. “I think you get a lot of people that take away the fun and the joy from this just because we have some losses, but I think just being able to have fun, lean on each other, play for each other, and at the end of the day, no one’s going to feel sorry for us.”

With five guaranteed games to go, and only a sixth if the team can right the ship and get to bowl eligibility, the turnaround to finish the season strong starts with the week of practice heading into Purdue.

From top to bottom, the emphasis is on staying together until the final whistle.

“I think the biggest piece that I saw from the bye week is our football team’s demand to come out and have great practices and want to fix the problems equally from the coaches’ standpoint,” Campbell said. “So I think that gives me a lot of confidence, and I think we’re really excited about continuing to move this thing forward.”