Penn State Football had a nightmare start to their 2020 season, going 0-5 for the first time in program history. Now they are using it as a rallying cry to turn things around in 2021
Athletic Director Sandy Barbour called Penn State Football’s 0-5 start “disturbing.”
Disturbing is one way to put it, while I am sure Nittany Lions fans would use a few other choice words to describe the programs first ever 0-5 start to a season.
Now, head coach James Franklin and his program must rebound and prove to the rest of the college football world that the 4-5 season was an outlier, a result of a wonky Covid-19 season and a bad call in Bloomington, and not the beginning of a downward trend in Happy Valley.
Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can go up, and sometimes you can find silver linings in even the darkest of days. It appears Penn State Football is set on using 0-5 as a rallying cry and motivation to be back and better than ever next fall, instead of shying away from it and burning the tape as coaches might say.
Redshirt freshman Brenton Strange let us in in on a little secret about the weight room when talking with the media last week.
"“Every day in the weight room we see 0-5 on the board and if that doesn’t motivate you…” Strange said."
Someone wrote 0-5 on a white board in the weight room as a constant reminder of the rock bottom the team hit last season while they lift and prepare for the 2021 season.
If you are a fan of the Nittany Lions it is hard not to love that the team has taken on that mindset, however the rough 2020 campaign may have silver linings that far outweigh a whiteboard reminding them of their struggles.
In an after the season press conference, coach Franklin called this a “critical” offseason for the program and thus far he has backed up that talk, making bold coaching changes and showing an aggressiveness in the transfer portal we have not seen in his tenure in State College.
If Penn State Football would have gone 7-2 or 6-3, maybe the changes they made to this point don’t take place. If the Nittany Lions escape the week 1 trip to Indiana with a win, what happens? they likely go on to lose to Ohio State but do they sleepwalk their way through games against Maryland and Nebraska?
The harsh reality of 0-5 may have revealed warts they otherwise may have not known existed if covered up with wins. Winning is always the best deodorant on problems within a team, program or locker room. The losses force you to look in the mirror and reevaluate.
After Penn State Football’s heartbreaking loss to Ohio State in 2018, Franklin had a moment of transparency with the media, where he admitted they just were not an elite program like Ohio State was, both on and off the field.
This offseason feels similar in that Franklin is acknowledging the program is not where he wants it or where it needs to be.
Let’s take a look at some of the events that have occurred between the end of the season and now that may not have if not for Penn State Football starting 0-5.
The bold decision to hire Mike Yurcich as offensive coordinator
One of the big splash hires of last offseason was Penn State Football poaching offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca from Minnesota to come call plays for the Nittany Lions.
Fast forward a year and once again Franklin was back in the news making a bold move, letting go of Ciarrocca after just one Covid-19 impacted season to bring in his white whale, Mike Yurcich.
It would have been really easy to blame the offensive issues on a lack of spring practice and inconsistent quarterback play in a new offense, however Franklin did not stand by idle, he saw an issue and addressed it.
Franklin cited “offensive philosophy” as a reason why he has always been in contact with the play caller and wanted the offense to get back to more of an up-tempo, spread attack like they had under Joe Moorhead.
The head coach referenced watching the national championship game, like the rest of us, and watching the Alabama and Ohio State offenses go back and forth in the first half like a ping pong match.
It was a reality check of where the sport is, what the elite teams are doing, and what his current team is capable of. Last year’s offense was just simply not going to get Penn State Football where it wants to go, so they made a change.
There are few guarantees in life, so the arrival of Yurcich doesn’t mean an immediate fix. But for Franklin, a guy who is known for being loyal even to a fault at times, to make this bold of a move shows he is willing to adapt, and that is step one in righting the ship.