For the second consecutive season it’s apparently T-shirt time for the Penn State football program — and there’s no surer sign that a team is not winning games than when that happens.
Last season, interim coach Terry Smith gave the team IF shirts. Handed out in mid-October they were intended to encourage the team to lean into the opportunities that remained.
This season, athletic director Pat Kraft gave the team OWN THE OUTCOME shirts. Several players wore them to media availability sessions this week. The message is apparently intended to similarly encourage the team to lean into the opportunities that remain this season.
At first glance, with the prominent O’s in the shirt, they seemed to be some sort of brand extension from sponsor Onvo.
Instead, it was just an extension of Kraft’s preferred role as an adjunct football coach/mentor.
Present on the sideline? Check.
Meeting with team leaders (unfortunately with the session recorded and shared on social media)? Check.
Getting Adidas to print up a 100 or so shirts with a workplace culture motto gleaned from some leadership seminar printed on them? Check.
Yes, football is the driving force for the Penn State athletic program, so Kraft should care. He certainly does.
Remember, he fought hard, publicly, to make sure the team did not open conference play on the road. (Because that was such an affront, and such a problem. … It was PR.)
There’s also the Beaver Stadium renovation, necessary for revenue generation, and he’s made his mark with coaching hires and overall athletic department culture as well.
Kraft has consistently championed support for Penn State’s athletes, across sports, promising they would compete for championships and would have cutting-edge, top-notch facilities and support.
That logic all makes sense. It’s his job.
But so is attracting and collaborating with sponsors, driving overarching business strategy, partnering across campus, raising money and more. There’s so much for Kraft and his team to do that when he says he does not want to be the focus of things publicly it makes sense because he’d be too busy to do much else but work.
At the same time, the competition, in any sport, probably provides a respite from everything else Kraft does. So being there and being part of what happens must be enjoyable. You can take the former linebacker off the field but not take the linebacker mentality out of the man.
Still, doing his job and trusting the coaches with messaging to their teams could be an approach. It’s just not his.
If the football team was winning games, there would be no shirts. That seems like a reasonable goal for future seasons. Please.
It’s an interesting optic as well — because the team’s football coach does not seem like a motto guy. Campbell seems more about adjusting, growing and putting the humans on his team in a position to succeed.
Plus, it seems reasonable to expect the results during what remains of this football season (T-shirt or not) to mirror what happened last season. Penn State might be getting its stuff together, and a bowl game could be possible because Rutgers and Maryland are among those who stand in the way of the necessary six victories.
Heck, winning out and finishing 8-5 in a year of transition when the traditions of college football (who typically beats who) have been replaced by more balance, would be something.
Campbell has had to work to mesh cultures and relationships of the players who followed him from Iowa State with those who remained here. And, of course, Campbell and Co. got a late start in the transfer portal. If they planned to add talent that way it was a challenge. There have been some poorly timed injuries as well.
None of that gets solved by a T-shirt.
And nobody is vilifying Penn State. So, this is not some MICHIGAN VS. EVERYBODY situation.
It’s not a T-shirt situation at all. But here we are (or there they are) for the second year in a row.
If they could put the shirts away and just put Ws on the scoreboard, that would be better. And you can bet if the victories come more regularly, the shirts will not be around in the future — unless someday there are championship shirts.
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