Blue White Illustrated

back with an 18-17 overtime victory over sixth-ranked Penn and looked to be on their way to a rousing comeback win over seventh-ranked Cornell before giving up two late goals in an 18-17 loss. Coach Jeff Tambroni, now in his 10th season with the Nittany Lions, said the team's recent success is partly attributa- ble to players' high expectations. They expect to have success, he said, and their confident attitude meshes with the pro- gram's goals. "If their expectations of themselves were either moderate or low, then I think that programmatically, we would put ourselves in a really challenging situa- tion coming into the season [because] for the team, for the program, our expecta- tions are so high," Tambroni said. "But I think it works just the opposite. I think that for our individuals, especially our older guys, their expectations of them- selves and where they see our program now and in the future are so high that it allows us to eliminate any of the outside expectations or the anticipation of what others think we should be. I think we have a very clear vision of what we should be like every single day on the practice field and over the course of the [game] weekend. And because of that, we're very critical." Penn State has a game-week routine that it follows throughout the season. On Mondays, everyone convenes to go over the previous game and highlight the im- provements that need to be made in the week ahead. The focus for the first few days of prac- tice is internal. The Lions want to begin every week by addressing their own shortcomings. Later in the week, the game plan for the upcoming opponent comes together. One of the overriding themes of every week is the desire to meet the program's internal expectations. It doesn't matter where the Lions are ranked. It doesn't matter where the opponent is ranked. What matters is that Penn State's players put in the work to become the best possible version of themselves. "I think if we were not as critical or these guys had lower expectations, then we would put ourselves in a position to fail," Tambroni said. "But I think because of those expectations, these guys have done a pretty good job of putting blind- ers on and recognizing each other's voices as the voice of reason, or the coaches' voices as the voice of reason. And I think because of that, there will be great perspective and it will allow us to have a humility to our approach, which I think will turn into a more successful or realistic approach on game day." ■ NET POSITIVE Through their first five games, O'Keefe was leading the Lions with 22 goals. He was third in the country, averag- ing 4.40 goals per game. Photo by John Patish- nock

• Cover