Another big game, another crushing loss. Can Penn State, James Franklin ever get over the hump?
The scene was an all too familiar one for Penn State on Saturday afternoon in Beaver Stadium.
Fans yelled at James Franklin as the final seconds ticked off the clock in the team’s 20-13 loss to Ohio State. “Get out of here!” and “Franklin, you suck!” were bellowed at the head coach as he walked onto the playing field. Boos rained down as the public address announcer mentioned the coach’s name, and a fan in the student section screamed at the head coach one last time as he entered the south tunnel, prompting Franklin to stop and ask for his name.
Even the final 100 feet to the locker room included a brief “Fire Franklin” chant from fans waiting in the tunnel.
Frustrations boiled over as the Nittany Lions, in their biggest game of the year, came up short once again. Much like in 2022, and much like in 2018 when they lost to the Buckeyes.
And while the shared postgame message from Franklin and his players is true — the season isn’t over and the College Football Playoff is well within reach — it’s not the complete truth.
Penn State will still likely make the playoff for the first time since its inception, but it will do so as a team that remains a notch below those who have the best chance to win a national title. But that latter part is not the message the Nittany Lions were pushing after the defeat — it was much more of the former.
“We’ve got to flush it and move on to Washington,” Franklin said. “We can’t allow one loss to turn into two. The reality of college football is everything is still ahead of us.”
Added running back Nick Singleton: “We’ve got to stick together, flush it, because we’ve got a long season ahead of us.”
Said offensive guard Sal Wormley: “With these new playoff rules, it really brings a lot of hope to teams that lose.”
None of them are wrong. It’s all still there. But does it matter all that much if the end result isn’t all that different? Maybe the season doesn’t end in a New Year’s Six bowl against a great opponent but instead against one in the CFP’s first round or the quarterfinals. But does it really matter if Penn State makes the playoff if it never really had a chance at a title? Is that all that far off from how the best seasons under Franklin at Penn State have concluded?
Playoff appearances are nice — albeit a little less so in an expanded field. Same with first-round wins. But that’s not how this year was supposed to go — it was supposed to be different. This team is as talented as any at Penn State in the last decade, and it was projected to contend for a Big Ten title or even a national title. And it was supposed to be the one that finally took care of business against Ohio State. It almost did.
This game was there for the taking against an Ohio State team that was vulnerable. The Buckeyes lack the level of quarterback play they’ve become accustomed to, with Will Howard struggling mightily — giving the Nittany Lions their only touchdown of the game with a pick-six and taking one off the board for his own team with a fumble that went through the end zone. The OSU defense, while elite, gave Penn State opportunities to score. Twice the Nittany Lions were in goal-to-go situations and twice they came out of those spots with no points.
They couldn’t finish those drives and they couldn’t close out the comeback despite never being more than a single score out of reach.
And that is part of the problem.
“Everybody’s upset,” Singleton said. “We felt like we didn’t finish. We’ve just got to finish, man. That’s really it. ... We just gotta figure it out. We know we’re good. We just gotta finish. That’s all.”
Finishing has been a part of the issue for Franklin’s teams for years against Ohio State. There’s 2017 when they were up multiple scores in the fourth quarter and blew the lead in Columbus. Then 2018 when the same thing happened but in Beaver Stadium. And 2022 when they led in the fourth quarter at home again but couldn’t close the door on the Buckeyes.
It has become a hallmark of these matchups and of the seasons under Franklin. Everything is going well, until it isn’t. And once it isn’t, the team struggles to recover. Usually that downturn begins with an Ohio State loss — something Franklin has suffered 10 times in his 11 games against the Buckeyes, including the last eight straight. Maybe it won’t this time, but an OSU loss doesn’t often portend great things.
That’s not to say Franklin is a bad coach or that his teams are bad. Quite the contrary. He is a great coach who has great teams, who are capable of ripping through most of their schedule. But success in big games remains elusive.
There will be more chances for Penn State in the future — and even with this group. It will get the chance to prove it can win a big game when it surely gets a big-time opponent in the first round of the playoff. But unless those results are more favorable, this program is what it is.
Franklin put it well after the 2018 loss when he said the Nittany Lions were great but not yet elite.
And six years later it’s fair to wonder if it will ever get there under his stewardship.
