James Franklin, Penn State come up small in another big game

Penn State and head coach James Franklin needed to do something on Saturday to change the narrative around their program in big games. 

Every opportunity was there for them to do exactly that. 

The Nittany Lions still fell short in a 20-12 loss to Ohio State, showing that things are the same as they ever were in the Big Ten.

Ohio State and Michigan dominate the top.

Penn State is a very distant third.

That has been the case for Franklin’s entire Penn State tenure, and there seems to be no sign of that changing anytime soon. Penn State fans might not like the numbers being recited every year, but they are impossible to ignore.

With Saturday’s loss, Franklin is now 4-15 against Ohio State and Michigan during his time at Penn State, including a 1-9 record against the Buckeyes. He is also just 3-16 against top-10 teams and 0-10 against top-10 teams on the road. 

It is one thing to have a losing record against top-ranked opponents. Most teams and coaches will over the long haul because those are the elite teams in the country and they are difficult to beat on a regular basis. But Franklin and Penn State are simply not winning any of those games. 

An inability to win those games is the sort of thing that prevents an excellent program from becoming a legitimate national title contender. It is also worth wondering if that is every going to change or how it will change because it just keeps happening in the same way over and over again. Especially in this game and in this season.

This is arguably the most talented team Franklin has had during his time at Penn State, while Ohio State did not look as daunting of an opponent as it has in recent years. That was especially true on offense with some inconsistencies at quarterback with a new starter in Kyle McCord. For the most part, Penn State’s defense did its job on Saturday in limiting the Buckeyes and giving its offense a chance. 

But Penn State’s offense was completely overmatched from its very first series of the day. Quarterback Drew Allar, who has been limited to a game-manager role all season, was terribly ineffective throwing the ball, while Penn State’s offensive line was totally dominated in pass protection for four quarters.

Penn State also made baffling coaching decisions, abandoning a running game that was working, not playing the field position game in the fourth quarter and attempting to go for it on fourth down on the Ohio State side of the field, and just looking unprepared for the one game it needed to win. 

Penn State failed to convert on its first 15 third-down attempts of the day and did not score a touchdown until there were only 29 seconds remaining in the game to make the final score look more respectable. It was all a mess. 

At this point, Penn State is what it is. It is very good, second-tier team that will easily win at least nine games that it should win and hang around the top-10 all year, only to get exposed as being a step below when it has to get through the real national title contenders. It has been that way for nearly a decade. It remains that way this season.