Penn State’s final record this year:

13 wins, three losses, and a run to the College Football Playoff semifinal. There are more than 125 Division 1 college football programs that would call this a great season, maybe their best ever, but not Penn State, because the goal has always been to break through that ceiling and become a national title winner. To beat the Ohio States and Michigans of this world. They’ve been knocking on the door for years and just cannot get over the top five hump, so with the weight of expectations framing the narrative, the resulting feelings are largely negative.

You look through that schedule and see they lost three games to teams that were ranked in the top five at the time of the contest. The Penn State boogeyman. “Can’t win the big one.” At the end of the regular season, their best win was 9-3 Illinois at home, a team that had a good bowl win over South Carolina to finish 10-3. If you put Illinois up against SMU and Boise State, say 10 times on a neutral field, what’s the split? 5-5? 6-4? If we’re trying to determine what PSU’s best win was, you could make a case for any of those three teams. There’s really not a ton separating them. But SMU and Boise aren’t getting a lot of wider respect because one finished as the ACC runner up and the other didn’t play in a power conference. They just weren’t Big 10 or SEC quality.

Now, to James Franklin, and here’s my problem with the day-after discussion –

If you say it’s on him for not recruiting better players, then every loss in the history of college sports can be pinned on the head coach. The “Big Game James” bit isn’t necessarily about recruiting or talent, it’s more about singular in-game decisions, like kicking a field on 4th and 1 or punting inside the opponent’s territory. He didn’t have any glaring bonehead issues like that Thursday night, unless you want to argue that they should have gone conservative at the end to play for overtime instead of letting Drew Allar throw the ball. That was more of a “feel out the situation” type of decision vs. any one singular choice, so it sort of fits the theme, and sort of doesn’t at the same time. He’s either gonna get killed for being too aggressive or too soft in that situation, though Allar certainly was not having a good game and maybe the head coach should have put more stock in that.


Franklin is a little cringe in general, the way he speaks and does these press conferences, which understandably invites the pile on. But it results in this thing where we’re so anxious to kill him that we maybe stray off the path a little bit in the process of fairly analyzing these games. Is it on Franklin for not recruiting better receivers? Okay, yeah, sure. I’d also put a bit of the blame on Andy Kotelnicki for not establishing the downfield passing game and exploring play action in the first half, when the run game was gashing. But that’s splitting hairs. If Allar is just a little bit better, then Penn State wins the Orange Bowl, and we’re not having this discussion at all. If the corner doesn’t slip and fall on his butt, with PSU up 24-17 deep into the fourth quarter, then maybe things are different. If they get one more break or one more play from the quarterback, they’re in the natty. The margins are razor-thin at the highest level of sport.