Learning to Love Again

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A year ago, I was writing prodigiously about the upcoming 2025 Penn State football season.

Repeatedly, I remember noting that this was the most anticipated season in Happy Valley since Sports Illustrated tabbed the Nittany Lions No. 1 back in the preseason of 1999.

My excitement for the season was at that proverbial fever pitch, each post I prepared as part of “peak offseason content” hinted at a season filled with awards, big wins, high rankings, and ultimately a shot at a national title.

And then Oregon happened. But for me, even before that Dillon Thieneman delivered a gut punch to the White Out crowd and started a six-game losing streak, I had my own series of gut punches in my personal life.

I don’t write any of what’s to follow as looking for sympathy, but rather for a road map for how to handle disappointment in your favorite hobby when there are loads of disappointment in your own life. Or better yet, to hear how you come back to your favorite team when it’s just not fun.

So, there’s the rub: last year just wasn’t fun. We said it a lot around these parts and I said it in writing and even on our podcast in the immediate aftermath of that Oregon double overtime loss. Penn State football just wasn’t fun in 2025. And again, I tie that a little bit to my own personal life, which just wasn’t fun for a few months with family health issues, craziness in the workplace, and just a general tumultuous time in the life of this writer.

Now, I sit here working on offseason content again. I’ve written less for the site, partly because I’ve been dealing with some things and partly because the spring has been the time of year where I normally don’t write as frequently. Tomorrow starts the count down from 99 days to the season opener against Marshall. I’ll be writing the first batch of those and it’s needed for me as I try to play catch up in some ways on just who in the world is on this revamped roster. But, it’s also a nice little countdown to having a fresh approach to something that I do still enjoy: Penn State football.

So how do you bounce back from disappointment with Penn State football? After all, we’ve all been there – spouting off in the post game comments here or maybe shutting off for a few days entirely. Maybe it’s going for a walk or to a nice dinner?

But how about after a full season of disappointment? After a full series of silly losses, a roller coaster coaching search, and a spring practice period that was limited in players and overall access with things like a true spring game?

That’s the sea that I’m swimming through now. I can remember some tough losses and how I handled them – a high school student pretending to laugh away the 1999 Minnesota game by hanging out with friends that night, turning off the TV following Mario Manningham’s touchdown catch in 2005, slowly filing out of Kinnick Stadium in 2008, watching all of Season 2 of Stranger Things in the aftermath of the Ohio State game in 2017, and writing and writing and writing after the Notre Dame loss in the Orange Bowl.

But this summer, it just feels a little different than even those. As opposed to last summer, I haven’t read much about college football outside of this site. I’ve avoided podcasts on the sport whereas this time last year, I was consuming four or five a week. I’ve not looked ahead to see what weekends have the best slate of games. Heck, I’m busy looking at the roster to even see what number the day after tomorrow brings.

However, I still enjoy it. I am looking forward to the games. I am looking forward to Penn State football. I am looking forward to getting out to Happy Valley on a perfect fall weekend. It’s not unlike the 2012 season. I remember Bill O’Brien’s first year well. After all, I went to all 12 games and immersed myself in Penn State football while sort of ignoring the larger national scope. It’s also when I fully immersed myself in the BSD community about a decade before I began writing for the site.

I learned then that the way I most enjoyed college football was to just watch my team, pay attention to the games, ignore the weekly “who’s in the playoffs” debates, and just sort of enjoy the actual team that I watched as I first found how much I loved this crazy sport of college football.

So what about you? How are you handling the disappointment of last season as you turn the page (100 days!) until the new season? How do you handle the losses during the year? Has it changed over time or with perspective or even from season to season?

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