Nittany Lions fall to 0-3 for fourth time in 80 years, embarrassed by Maryland, 35-19

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State's 0-3 for the first time since 2001.

For the fourth time in 80 years.

And this after opening the season ranked No. 8 by the Associated Press.

This time, the Nittany Lions allowed Maryland to leap out to a 21-point first-half lead on an easy path toward prevailing, 35-19, Saturday at Beaver Stadium. After being a 27.5-point favorite.

"We're an 0-3, poor-performing football team," quarterback Sean Clifford said. "We need to change that. There's no ifs, ands or buts. We've got to figure it out because it's unacceptable to ourselves, to the coaches, to the fans. It's not acceptable, so we've got to figure it out."

Unacceptable is right. Losing to Maryland for the third time in 44 match-ups is remarkable. This series has been incredibly lopsided. In fact, seven of Penn State's 40 wins have been shutouts, with the Nittany Lions outscoring the Terrapins 163-6 in the previous three matchups between the teams.

At 2-1, Maryland is off to a solid start this season, but there's no excuse for a team as 'talented' as Penn State to lose to Maryland, let alone get trounced by the Terrapins at home.

While Clifford should shoulder most of the blame for the 0-3 start, it's not all his fault. After all, his head coach - who signed a six-year contract extension last December - let him out to dry and his confidence to wither away on the Beaver Stadium grass, much like the same coach did a few years ago with Christian Hackenberg. 

"For me, with starting quarterbacks, you want to do everything you possibly can with your starting quarterback to give them a chance to be successful and rally the team" coach James Franklin said. "In the second half, we still felt like we had an opportunity to go out and get this thing swung in the other direction."

About that momentum swinging in the other direction, this is what happened on the first drive of the second half for Penn State...

Ball. Game.

"I'm [ticked]," Clifford said. "We're an 0-3 football team. I've never been on an 0-3 team. I've never lost like this in my life."

Since November of 2019, the Nittany Lions are 3-5, including three of those losses being by double-digits. November 2019 was the point of the season at which Penn State was undefeated and ranked No. 4 in the initial College Football Playoff poll.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

They are 16-9 since Franklin made the 'great to elite' speech following a one-point loss to Ohio State in 2018; the Nittany Lions have won more games than they've lost, but this embarrassment stands alone.

"We've kind of lost three different ways and in years past, we've found different ways to win games," Franklin said. "We need to get it fixed, and we need to get it fixed fast."

How fast that might be is yet to be determined, but this week would be an ideal place to start. One of the few bright spots, Jahan Dotson, said it starts with buying in.

"We're not a good football team right now," Dotson said. "We've got to have every one 100 percent bought-in and we've got to work. Monday is a day off. We've got to see every guy in the building. Literally from top to bottom, we've got to see every guy in the building, just doing something to get better every single day. That's where it's got to start. It's going to start tomorrow."

Dotson has blossomed into one of the top receivers in the country despite the lack of victories, but more importantly, he's developing as a leader. Which is much-needed, because leadership for the Nittany Lions has been, much like a win, non-existent.

"We're not as one right now, we're not as a unit right now," Dotson said. "There's distractions that we shouldn't be focused on right now. We've got to be focused on getting in the win column, nothing else."

Dotson isn't wrong, and it's easy to see why. Whatever it is that's going on for Penn State -- whether it's internal, on the field or otherwise -- just isn't working. His quarterback agrees. 

"Nobody wants to be 0-3. That's not what anybody came here to do," Clifford said. "To Jahan's point, it's the little things. We've got to do every little thing right and we're not doing that. It's all across the board. It starts with me."

It might start with Clifford and the offense, but it's an organizational issue that's leaving the players and coaches to ask where to go from here.

"You just keep asking yourself, 'What is it? What can we do?' " tight end Pat Freiermuth said. "As players of this program, we want more to do. ... Like, what do we do? Coaches have given us that, but at the end of the day, we just don't know. That's the most frustrating thing."

It's not going to be easy to climb out of this hole for Penn State. It's going to take a harsh reality check and some significant soul-searching if the Nittany Lions want to return to playing competitive football.

"Everybody in this locker room is here for a reason. We're all we've got," linebacker Jesse Luketa said. "We need to have those tough conversations moving forward and address what we need to do to get back on track. That's the biggest point of emphasis now to spread throughout the locker room. Outside noise, it's irrelevant. If people are chirping, the only people that matter are a part of this locker room. That's where we're at."

That outside noise is only going to continue to grow with each bad play, bad call or ugly loss. The only place they can escape it is the practice field.

"It starts in practice," Dotson said. "Execute in practice, it's going to translate to games, we're not going to extend the game. Our coaches are putting us in great positions to succeed and we just have to do our job."

It's going to take take everybody, from walk-on to starter to the head coach, to get the ship sailing in the right direction before it sinks. Until then, Penn State is 0-3 and in dire straits. 

"We've got to have everyone 100 percent bought in," Dotson said. "We're going to see who really wants it. Who really wants to be here, bought in. And if you don't, there's no time for that. We're 0-3. It's time to turn the season around. We've got to do something different."

• As embarrassing of a performance as Saturday was, it was a productive night for Penn State receivers, as Dotson recorded his second 100-plus yard game in a row. He caught passes for 123 yards and a touchdown. Washington added two touchdowns and 70 yards. 

Freiermuth, while not finding the end zone, hauled in six receptions for 91 yards.  

• Jayson Oweh led the Penn State defense with 10 tackles, two of which came for a loss. 

• Leave it to Maryland to roast the Nittany Lions on the scoreboard and on social media with this post. 

• Led by Devyn Ford with 36 yards on nine carries, Penn State couldn't get anything at all going from the rushing game, amassing a mere 94 yards as a group. Caziah Holmes added 29 yards and Clifford added 26, despite being sacked seven times.

"We haven't been able to break tackles consistently and make people miss consistently," Franklin said. "It's been similar for the first couple of weeks. We're not getting consistent push, we're not sustaining blocks and then, obviously, we're not breaking tackles and making people miss."

• It will be a matchup of two winless teams when Penn State heads to Nebraska next Saturday for a noon kickoff. The Cornhuskers enter the game 0-2, with losses to Ohio State and Northwestern.