In Search of Solace in Happy Valley

By Chris Buchignani

From deafening crescendo to devastating collapse, the arc of ultimately unfulfilled anticipation that held Happy Valley in thrall throughout this past weekend will, for better or worse, define more than the rest of Penn State’s 2025 football season and quite possibly many more to follow.

One 72-hour period showed off the best our community has to offer, itself the culmination of nine months’ worth of buildup and excitement, but with the lights bright, the cameras rolling, and the eyes of the college football world fixed on Beaver Stadium, our heroes clad in Blue and White came up short in sickeningly familiar fashion. For 111,000 revelers dressed head to toe in white and fueling one of the sport’s signature traditions – many of whom had invested princely sums for the privilege of doing so – the long, warm Autumn afternoon gave way to an evening of bitter disappointment. So, what are we to make of this jarring contrast? What lesson might we take, what value can we extract from a moment of promise that was robbed of its potential?

Full disclosure: I drafted and deleted at least four different versions of this column, each one bleaker and more acerbic than the last. Drew Allar’s latest soul-crushing interception left me with a cold, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach and precious little room in my heart for waxing poetic about the magic of the Nittany Valley. With time running out, I couldn’t compose an entire column that fully captured a fleeting moment I experienced late in the fourth quarter Saturday night, as the Nittany Lions were teasing us all into believing this latest chapter in the story might have a surprise ending – a kernel of hope in a cauldron of despair (see what I meant about the bleakness?). As the Beaver Stadium crowd launched into a vigorous “We Are Penn State” exchange, I thought about the meaning of that phrase and about how blessed and honored I felt, even in that moment of deep frustration, for the privilege to answer “Penn State” when my brethren across the field hollered “We Are.”

And so, as my deadline approached, whether by chance or providence, I was saved by the same avenue that so often rescued my modest academic career – the lazy way out. My wife pointed me to a Facebook post from a friend who had a visited this past weekend, a loyal Penn Stater who’d driven through the night from Georgia to introduce her teenage son to Happy Valley in all its splendor. She was reflecting on her weekend by quoting a passage from a column I’d written years before about the phenomenon that united us all this weekend and left media personalities raving about Penn State’s fans and atmosphere, if not its football team. So no, I had no time left to write an original column, but I could take a cue from our friend’s social media post and steal one from myself. And here it is:

“I mentioned my dear departed friend, the late Jason Waeltz ’04, earlier in part because the editors have foolishly granted me total carte blanche, so I am immediately abusing it to gratuitously name drop personal acquaintances. But also because, while my friends and I will never get to see or hear him again in this life, every time we stupidly assemble in a grass field or gravel lot outside Beaver Stadium for between five and 12 hours of laughter, drinking, and endless rounds of flip cup, we keep him alive. As long as we keep coming back, he’s still there with us. 

This is my reminder to you: You have that person or those people right now, those whose memory is sustained at least in part by your fidelity to the rituals of Penn State football. You were lucky to have the time you did with them, and now your recall of it is priceless. What’s more, there are others (I hope many others, for each of you reading) whose presence you’re blessed to have in your life right now and who somehow understand your passion for this annual tradition. It could be a parent, a sibling, a spouse, a child, an old roommate or teammate, a childhood friend, or a co-worker (ok, probably not). At some point this season, something incredible is going to happen, a play that makes it into every hype video and gets replayed endlessly in pregame and during timeouts for the next 50 years [Author’s Note: This will not happen.], and today I am imploring you: When it does, steal just a moment to look over at that person, or those people, and burn the record of them in that moment, that precious snapshot in time, into your long-term memory. In the years to come, when you recount the journey of the 2025 Penn State football season, your enjoyment of it will be enriched immeasurably by the inclusion of those who shared it with you.

Enjoy the vibrancy of the moments as they happen, and you’ll treasure the vividness of the memories forever after. If your expectation is that the players leave it all out on the field each week, then you should follow suit. Live the hell out of every moment of this season – from the tense to the jubilant – the stories of each passing Fall in Happy Valley, the most historic ones in particular, demand nothing less.”

From one Saturday to the next, one year, one decade, to those that follow, that spirit remains immutable. So, if, like me, you need something – anything – to recharge your batteries and restore your faith, let it be that. Bring on UCLA.

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Chris Buchignani is cohost of The Obligatory PSU Podcast and The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show, entering its 10^th season this Fall. He teaches a course on Penn State Football History for Penn State OLLI.