Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1543434
1 6 M A R C H 2 0 2 6 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M They Said It "I don't know if their team is going to be a 10-win team, but their schedule is a potential 10-win schedule, and that is exactly how I would want it. Man, if you would have known this schedule before their hiring process, guys would have clamored to take the Penn State job. Not that they didn't; they got a great candidate with Matt Campbell, but it took a bit of time. If you knew this was the schedule, you would have been like, 'Let's go, giddy up.'" — Joel Klatt, FOX Sports analyst, assessing PSU's schedule on his podcast, "The Joel Klatt Show" "After taking over the Penn State program Dec. 8, former Iowa State coach Matt Camp- bell and his staff did an amazing job rebuild- ing the Nittany Lions. They signed 39 trans- fers, including 24 who played for Campbell at Iowa State. That's going to make the tran- sition much smoother and give the Nittany Lions a chance to surprise in 2026." — Mark Schlabach, ESPN writer, after ranking the Nittany Lions 22nd in his way-too-early 2026 college football poll "I'm gonna take a chance on Matt Camp- bell, a long-time fantastic coach, pushing Penn State to play top-25 football despite a load of newcomers. Veteran quarterback Rocco Becht followed him from Iowa State, and that familiarity, along with the top-25 type talent still on the roster, will lead to a team that exits August worthy of consider- ation as a fringe top-25 team." — Brandon Marcello, CBSSports.com writer, explaining his decision to place Penn State 22nd in his way-too-early 2026 football poll "There's nothing like Beaver Stadium, and I know that now. That was the coolest environ- ment I will ever play in in my life, no matter if I make it to the NHL or not." — Junior forward Dane Dowiak, on Penn State's Jan. 31 matchup with Michigan State, the first men's ice hockey game ever played in Beaver Stadium "I think it was a great match for us. That's a really good team. Some of those guys [from Nebraska] are guys you're going to need to beat if you want to be a national champ. "You're wrestling a good team, and you're not always going to have your best night. As a team, maybe we were a little flat, and that's OK. That happens. We wrestled a great team. We knew this would be a great dual months ago. I think the guys just had to get tough and battle some really good wrestlers." — Wrestling coach Cael Sanderson following Penn State's 26-12 win over the fifth-ranked Cornhuskers on Jan. 30, only the second of PSU's 12 dual meets to that point in the season to be decided by fewer than 30 points "I have a daughter, and if she married someone like Rocco, I'll be the winner of the century. He's got great character." — New offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser on transfer quarterback Rocco Becht "You have a certain way you want your sea- son to go, your games to go. When it doesn't go that way, you can have problems. We don't. We've just got to get better. Today was a little bit of a validation that these guys are doing things the right way. I'm really proud of them." — Men's basketball coach Mike Rhoades following Penn State's 77-75 win over Minnesota on Feb. 1, the team's first Big Ten victory of the season after opening the conference campaign with 10 losses "How's this for luck ahead of Matt Campbell's first season? The Nittany Li- ons will not have to play Indiana, Ohio State or Oregon during conference play and get USC at Beaver Stadium. There are teams with more favorable sched- ules overall, sure, but Penn State has to like its chances as a potential dark horse to find a place in the top tier of the league standings relative to the tal- ent Campbell is bringing in from the transfer portal." — Brad Crawford, CBSSports.com writer, ranking Penn State's 2026 Big Ten slate the second-most-favorable in the league behind only Wisconsin PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS