There was nothing really to enjoy about Saturday’s Penn State victory over Northwestern, at least as far as the offense was concerned. Penn State coughed the football up four times to the Northwestern defense with [autotag]Nick Singleton[/autotag] losing two fumbles, [autotag]Keyvone Lee[/autotag] losing another, and [autotag]Sean Clifford[/autotag] being intercepted. Head coach [autotag]James Franklin[/autotag] was visibly upset with his team’s turnover problems on multiple occasions, and understandably so.
But after the game in his postgame handshake with Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald, Franklin praised the gutsy effort by the Wildcats.
“You guys played your ass off,” Franklin was heard saying to Fitzgerald as the two wished each other well moving on this season.
What James Franklin said to Pat Fitzgerald in the postgame handshake… pic.twitter.com/8Mwx7LF0hb
— Kevin McGuire (@KevinOnCFB) October 1, 2022
This has been a tough season for Fitzgerald and Northwestern. After opening the season with a win in Ireland against Nebraska, Northwestern has now lost four consecutive games to Duke, Southern Illinois, Miami Ohio and, now, Penn State.
You know things are not going your way when you force five turnovers and get zero points off of those opportunities. It was just one of those days for Northwestern, fortunately for Penn State. Credit the effort from the Penn State defense to keep this game from turning into something much uglier than it ended up.
Penn State will get a week off to regroup and fine-tune a few things before hitting the road in two weeks to face Michigan.
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