Behind Enemy Lines: 
PSU writer Tyler King

Before the season began, it 
seemed the Michigan football 
team’s entire 2018 would be 
defined by its three-game stretch 
against 
Wisconsin, 
Michigan 
State and Penn State, from middle 
October to early November. 
Two 
games 
through 
that 
stretch, 
the 
fifth-ranked 
Wolverines (7-1 overall, 5-0 Big 
Ten) have nearly made it out the 
other side unscathed. 
All that is left in Michigan’s 
season-defining span now are 
the 14th-ranked Nittany Lions 
(6-2, 3-2). 
Penn State was thought to 
be a national title contender 
at the start of the season, but 
after two heartbreaking losses 
to Ohio State and the Spartans, 
the Nittany Lions are now 
fighting an uphill battle to play 
meaningful late-season games. 
Of course, if they can overcome 
the Wolverines on Saturday, that 
narrative may be flipped on its 
head. 
To 
preview 
the 
top-15 
matchup, The Daily caught up 
with Tyler King, the football 
editor at Penn State’s student 
newspaper, The Daily Collegian, 
to ask about the importance of 
the game and how he sees things 
panning out.
The Michigan Daily: So, 
Michigan players have been 
talking, and the coaches have 
been talking a lot this week about 
last year’s game. I’m wondering 
how much talk there’s been on 
the Penn State end about that 
game.
Tyler King: Yeah, Penn State 
is like one of the few schools 
in the country, maybe the only 
school, that doesn’t do a big 
press 
conference, 
which 
is 
very frustrating from a content 
standpoint, but that’s beside the 
point. But they take this whole, 
1-0 each week mentality, treating 
every game like the Super Bowl, 
which is such a cliché, but they 
do it. For every game, they treat 
every game, not like it’s Akron, 
but there have been misconstrued 
quotes from, like, last year, where 
James Franklin says beating 
a team like (Pittsburgh), an 
in-state rival, is just as important 
as beating Akron.
So, I mean, they haven’t really 

talked about it too much, because 
honestly even today, the players 
and James Franklin were asked 
about two years ago, the game at 
The Big House, which Michigan 
won, 49-10. And they kind of just 
shrugged those questions off, 
like, ‘Yeah, that happened, but 
we’re just focused on this year’s 
game and this year’s Michigan 
team.’ They usually like to shrug 
those questions off and they don’t 
heavily talk about that game a lot 
from last year. Obviously it was a 
whiteout game and Penn State’s 
had success in the whiteout the 
last couple of years. Obviously 
this year losing by one point to 
Ohio State, but in general, usually 
the whiteout has been successful. 
I just think that was just a product 
of two teams last year where 
Penn State was just clearly better 
and in that home environment it 
just kind of showed.
TMD: And about those two 
losses, both of them have sort 
of come at the last minute in 
heartbreaking fashion. Does it 
feel at all like a team demoralized 
by those or are they sort of 
rallying around finishing strong 
here?
TK: Yeah, like I said, they do 
that annoying, kind of, 1-0-each-
week kind of thing, and James 
Franklin said that after they beat 
Iowa this past week. Another 
beat reporter asked about, you 
know, does this kind of, maybe 
breathe some life into the team? 
And James kind of really just 
played that question off and just 
said, ‘Look, we’re 1-0 this week. 
We’re happy we won this week.’ 
So, I mean, after the Ohio State 
game, the vibe that I got from 
talking to players and especially 
a guy like Trace McSorley, who 
had, I mean, just an unbelievable 
performance against Ohio State, 
they felt kind of confident. I 
mean, in my opinion, I thought 
Penn State was the better team 
for three quarters, and then they 
just had another fourth-quarter 
collapse and they lost by one 
point. So I didn’t think they were 
very defeated.
But after Michigan State, I 
could feel it, talking to players, 
that they were kind of defeated. 
And obviously now, that was 
three weeks ago, so I mean, I 
would have a good feeling they 
put those two games behind 
them. But, I mean, definitely 

MIKE PERSAK
Managing Sports Editor

Football Friday, November 2, 2018
2B