NOTE: The Penn State football Q&A will go on hiatus until bowl season. Check back next month.

Q: I just watched Penn State lose to Michigan State to drop to 8-4, and 4-4 in the conference. Now that the regular season is over, what do you think caused this team to underachieve -- unless they were vastly overrated coming into the season, when a lot of prognosticators predicted a Big Ten title?

Chris Mohney, DuBois

MUSSELMAN: A lot of things went wrong for Penn State this season, but that's no excuse. Off-the-field incidents were a major distraction and the defense was not very good down the stretch after losing seemingly one lineman after another to injury or legal problems. Anthony Morelli was OK at quarterback, but he didn't beat Michigan or Ohio State for the second year in a row. The coaching staff also had an up-and-down season, especially when it came to setting the game plan for Michigan. What had been projected as a big year turned into an average year for the Lions, who are just 32-32 in the Big Ten in the past decade.