No, Penn State Football Fans, it isn’t time to move on from James Franklin
Penn State Football’s November looks dramatically different from its September aspirations, as much uncertainty swirls around James Franklin’s and the Nittany Lions’ future
Penn State Football’s 33-24 loss to Ohio State on Saturday marked the third straight loss for the Nittany Lions and brings their record over the last two seasons to 9-8.
Penn State Football fans are not accustomed to the team barely holding a .500 record after the Nittany Lions went 42-11 from 2016 to 2019.
The poor play on the field, combined with rumors swirling about James Franklin’s future in Happy Valley have turned some fans the wrong way.
Some fans have come to the point where they are begging Franklin to take another job, but those pleas are short-sighted.
First off, let’s put that 9-8 record into context.
When Penn State Football started 0-5 in 2020 there were plenty of reasons as to why the worst start in program history occurred.
Star linebacker, and current NFL defensive rookie of the year frontrunner Micah Parsons, opted out of the pandemic shortened season. The Nittany Lions lost their top two running backs, Journey Brown and Noah Cain, less than five minutes into the start of the season, with Brown forced to retire due a medical condition and Cain getting hurt on the first drive of the year.
Additionally, star tight end Pat Freiermuth was lost for the season due to an injury three games in. Veteran cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields also dealt with a serious injury.
There was also the issue of trying to install new offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca’s offense remotely. Quarterback Sean Clifford, and the offense as a whole, struggled to find their footing early in the season. Clifford looked indecisive often and it led to numerous turnovers and sacks.
While it is true that every program nationwide dealt with the unique circumstances that came with playing football during a pandemic, those hurdles just seemed to be magnified at Penn State.
Clifford went through the 2020 season without his top two targets from 2019, Freiermuth and K.J. Hamler, his top two running backs from 2019, Brown and Cain, and he learned a new offense over zoom.
We saw that Clifford eventually settled in with the offense and his new weapons and the team finished the season 4-0. Not everything that happened in 2020 was Franklin’s fault or in his control.
Fast forward to 2021 … Franklin decides to move on from Ciarrocca and bring in the newly available Mike Yurcich as offensive coordinator. Franklin also makes a change in his philosophy and uses the transfer portal to his advantage.
The plan works perfectly, the Nittany Lions are 5-0 with wins at Wisconsin and over Auburn and they hold a 17-3 lead on the road against No.3 Iowa.
Things look great, then disaster strikes.
Clifford walks to the locker room and when he returns, his No.14 white jersey has been replaced with a blue warm-up shirt. Backup Taquan Roberson enters the game and it does not go well. The Nittany Lions manage just three points the rest of the way and lose 23-20.
Now, here is where Franklin will get some deserved blame. The program did not properly replace 2020 backup quarterback Will Levis, who transferred to Kentucky.
Franklin and Yurcich also clearly did not have a solid plan in place in case Clifford was to go down.
The problem with trying to bring in a transfer quarterback is that the reason that player is in the portal is because he’s currently not starting. The player is going to go to a place where they feel they have the inside track for the starting spot.
That was not the case at Penn State, where barring someone like Ohio State’s Jack Miller entering the portal, Clifford was the assumed starter. It just wasn’t an attractive landing spot for the few transfer quarterbacks available this past Spring.
Chances are that if Penn State Football did land a transfer, there would have been a competition, but no portal quarterback was taking that risk.
In regards to Roberson, he missed some wide-open receivers, and the receivers also dropped a few crucial passes. The inability to run the ball was just as big of an issue in the Iowa game as was the quarterback play after Clifford’s injury. Everyone deserves some of the blame for what happened in Kinnick, Franklin included.
The next game is the least defendable.
With a bye between the Iowa and Illinois games, Clifford had time to get healthy and the offense had time to get a plan in place for Roberson.
Instead, a somewhat healthy Clifford took the field and it looked like there wasn’t much of a plan in place. Penn State Football fell to Illinois in nine overtimes by a score of 20-18. The Illini ran for 357 yards in the game, often putting nine men on the line of scrimmage against Penn State’s base defense.
Penn State Football’s decision to not change their defensive alignments was puzzling. It should be noted though, this was the first game without starting defensive tackle P.J. Mustipher, who was lost for the season against Iowa. Penn State’s other preseason projected starting defensive tackle, Hakeem Beamon, is out for the year as well for an undisclosed reason. Short-handed up front, defensive coordinator Brent Pry didn’t have many experienced options to rely on.
As for the offense, they again did not have a solid run game to complement the limited Clifford, and it showed. The debate as to whether Clifford should have played or not could go on forever. It’s possible that the staff felt an injured Clifford was the best option, we don’t know what went on behind the scenes that went into that decision being made.
This past week’s loss to Ohio State was an encouraging one, considering how the last two games went.
If a few bounces went a different way, we could be talking about a Penn State win. What this game did show though, was that talent matters.
Penn State Football had the talent in certain areas that kept them in the game against Ohio State. It was Ohio State’s deeper talent pool that helped them keep the Nittany Lions out of reach on Saturday.
The Buckeyes are one of just a few teams that start mostly former five and four-star recruits and have the vast majority of their second team also as former blue-chip recruits. The other teams include Alabama, Georgia, and Clemson.
So, the next step for Franklin is to get into that elite group of teams with an abundance of talent.
Franklin is on his way there as Penn State currently has the No. 3 class in the nation in 2022 and the No. 5 class in the nation in the 2023 class.
While Penn State Football has always had an abundance of talent, the main criticism of Franklin has been that he can’t recruit the quarterback who will get him to the next level, much like Deshaun Watson did for Dabo Swinney.
That is no longer the case, as Franklin has landed the top quarterback in the 2022 class in Drew Allar, along with another talented signal-caller in Beau Pribula.
No Penn State quarterback commit during Franklin’s tenure has garnered the attention that this duo has received.
Franklin may finally have the guys at quarterback to get his program to the next level.
Additionally, Franklin is starting to get buy-in from the administration.
The first sign of this came in January when they were willing to eat Ciarrocca’s buyout and spend the appropriate money to bring in Yurcich. Secondly, the Board of Trustees approved a $48.3 million proposal for improved football facilities in the Spring. Franklin has been keen on improving Penn State’s facilities, and he’s finally getting there.
Long overdue renovations to Beaver Stadium are also starting to commence.
The stadium is being upgraded to make the fan experience more enjoyable and comfortable, especially for cold-weather games. While these upgrades won’t be completed in the near future, it’s another step in the right direction for the program.
So, although the past two seasons have not gone as smoothly as Penn State fans would have hoped, the future is still promising.
Franklin could opt to take the job at either LSU or USC, but fans should not be wishing for that to happen.
This is the same coach, who in year three, turned a program reeling from near-death penalty sanctions into a conference champion and a winner of 11 games three out of four years.
Now, with more trust from the people in power, top-notch recruiting classes, and new facilities, Franklin has a chance to reach that elite status he has longed for.
It doesn’t make sense to turn around now, while the program is on the brink of taking that next step. If you want to have this conversation three or fours years from now, when Allar is likely gone and there still wasn’t a step taken forward, you would have a legitimate case.
For now, understand that the last two years have presented unique challenges, and yet, Franklin has been able to recruit at a high level and keep the program moving forward.