Penn State Ended Long Drought By Defeating the Washington Huskies on Saturday

The betting line had been historically very accurate for the Penn State Nittany Lions over the past half-decade.

When the Nittany Lions have been favored, they have won those games matchups but when they have been underdogs, well, they never flipped the script. Since 2021, they have been 0-13 as underdogs, a streak that spanned 1,890 days. That streak ended on Saturday against Washington.

Penn State was a 2.5-point underdog in this Big Ten road game, one that both teams really wanted badly. 

While the Nittany Lions jumped out to a major lead, the Huskies brought it all the way back and made it a tight game at the end. It didn't matter; Penn State finished it out and escaped Seattle with a victory.

This game was such a huge one for Matt Campbell and the Nittany Lions, who are very close to having everything click. First, the Huskies were absolutely a step up in terms of competition from the Purdue Boilermakers, who were Campbell's only conference win to this point.

The second is that I don't care who the opponent is; going across the country to play a football game is always incredibly hard. It was the first road win of Campbell's career and it was likely the hardest one that he was going to have this year.

All of those things are true, and then add the fact of how it happened. The Nittany Lions were absolutely shot out of a cannon to start the football game against Washington. They took the lead in the first quarter, and then they multiplied it in the second quarter.

They used a 21-point second quarter to take a 28-3 lead into halftime, and everyone thought that it was over, including the Penn State players.

Washington pushed the tempo and applied the pressure in the second half, and it almost worked out for them. They chased Penn State all the way down, but they still came up a bit short.

Penn State is now on a little bit of a winning streak as they continue to build and establish Matt Campbell's new culture as he builds this program. What can't get lost in the finish of the season is what they can do to build for the start of next year. A couple of wins to end this season and some positive momentum will go a long way to build the culture of this team as they look towards the future.

Programs are not built over the course of a year; sometimes they take time to get settled in. Maybe, just maybe, they have things pointed in the right direction.