FALL '26 Episode 10: Philadelphia Freedom
About this episode
The episode discusses the Penn State Nittany Lions' impressive season-opening victory and the context surrounding their performance.
For the moment at least, the bad memories were banished - the lengthy, lingering shadows of a shattered season ripe with promise, a messy divorce rife with mutual recrimination and the ensuing miserable slog of a coaching search riddled with dead ends and false starts, an offseason loaded with uncertainties and a chorus of skeptics ritually chanting "Iowa State East" - all were swept away like so much dust on the wind in one breezy, sun-drenched afternoon in Happy Valley. As a blissfully relaxed, near-capacity crowd slowly filed out of Beaver Stadium while home team salted away a 45-0 season-opening win, the simplest question haunting an interminably long offseason had been answered: Yes, the Penn State Nittany Lions could still play football, and they were going to be just fine, in fact. With the fandom still milking that sugar high, Matt Campbell takes his team on the road for the first time, looking to exorcise some demons of the deeper past. The Lions return to Lincoln Financial Field for the first time since their infamous 10-sack humbling at the hands of alumnus and Letterman Matt Rhule's 2015 Temple team. That was then. Coach and school have long since parted ways and…
Topics covered
- football
- Penn State
- season opener
- coaching changes
- team performance
More episodes of The Obligatory PSU Podcast
- FALL '26 Episode 9: Marshall the Troops
- FALL '26 Episode 8: Penn State Roster Review (Defense)
- FALL '26 Episode 7: Penn State Roster Review (Offense)
- FALL '26 Episode 6: The Last James Franklin Show
- FALL '26 Episode 5: The Zen of Matt Campbell
- FALL '26 Episode 4: Caught in the (Save College Sports) Act
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