‘Half relief, half excitement’: Why Penn State football’s win vs. MSU means so much

Penn State head coach Terry Smith turned to look at quarterbacks coach Danny O’Brien as the seconds ticked toward their team’s 28-10 win over Michigan State on Saturday evening. O’Brien was starting to get sentimental.

“I’m looking at him sideways like, we don’t normally have these conversations,” Smith said following the win. “Then the bucket hit me.”

O’Brien was the distraction to celebrate the interim head coach, who was doused in Gatorade and then lifted off his feet by multiple players and carried onto the field. The Nittany Lions celebrated a win over the Spartans like they had won the Super Bowl. And they may as well have.

Penn State finally has a conference win — its first win of any kind since Sept. 13 — and felt a weight lifted off its shoulders, finding an oasis in a disastrous 2025 season.

“It’s half relief, half excitement,” safety Zakee Wheatley said after exhaling. “It’s really a bunch of feelings right now. I’m just so happy for the other seniors, Coach (Smith), the whole coaching staff. We haven’t felt this in a minute.”

It wasn’t just Wheatley. Offensive lineman Anthony Donkoh stood on the field postgame and tilted his head back and exhaled, like he was releasing all the pent-up frustration and emotional exhaustion of the last two months.

This was about more than just breaking the six-game losing streak. Smith got his first win. So did quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer. And it was the first win since former head coach James Franklin was fired Oct. 12. Because that’s what started all of this chaos. A three-game losing streak led to Franklin’s dismissal and turned the program on its head in a way it hadn’t seen in over a decade.

And the players and remaining coaches were left to pick up the pieces. And one of those pieces is their former head coach, who is still on their mind.

“It’s big for us,” defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton said. “We’ve been on a six-game losing streak. We lost our coach. We’ve just been struggling a lot. … It’s definitely for Coach Terry, and for Coach Franklin as well. … We love Coach Terry, and we love Coach Franklin, as well.”

In some ways, the win was an enactment of Franklin’s vision for the team. The offensive line dominated up front, allowing the Nittany Lions to maintain their second-half lead by leaning on the Michigan State defensive line. The defense was suffocating. It gave up a touchdown on Michigan State’s first play and then let up only a field goal for the rest of the game. PSU’s quarterback beat the defense with a deep shot that forced the secondary and linebackers to stay on their toes, opening more space for the running game.

All the pieces finally clicked. And all the players finally got a taste of what they had been chasing all season.

Saturday’s win won’t change the challenges that lie ahead. A new coach will still lead the program for the first time since 2013. Players and coaches will still have a chance to move on, whether that’s to the NFL or another school. And that applies to everyone in the Lasch Football Building. Everything will still be different next year.

But for one night, it wasn’t. For one night, they were smiling and laughing and enjoying being the team they were supposed to be the whole time.

Dennis-Sutton hadn’t been that happy since the team’s last win against Villanova. Wheatley was smiling from ear to ear during his entire postgame media availability. The entire starting offensive line came into the interview room and spoke to the media as a unit. There was emotion from Smith, who nearly teared up when he talked about what the win meant. Every player who came into the postgame media availability was jovial.

It would be easy to diminish what they accomplished against another team that had yet to win a Big Ten matchup this season. But this wasn’t about Michigan State. It was about the players in Penn State’s locker room finally feeling joy and celebrating. Their yells echoed through the halls of Spartan Stadium as they celebrated postgame.

And the reason why was obvious — and it was one tight end Andrew Rappleyea exclaimed as he celebrated on the field after the win.

“We finally won a (expletive) game.”