How can James Franklin redeem himself in 2022 and earn back fans’ trust?

Among the many complaints about James Franklin from the Penn State fanbase, one of the common ones is that he always loses at least one game per season to a team that he shouldn’t.

Some years are worse than others–such as Illinois last year–and others not so much, such as Minnesota in 2019. Even though that Minnesota loss was on the road to a good undefeated Golden Gopher team, that’s still a game that should have been a win for the Nittany Lions.

So how can James Franklin redeem himself from the past two seasons and begin to earn back the trust of the fanbase?

Stop losing to those games that you’re supposed to win.

Even the elite teams lose games they shouldn’t from time to time, but it’s not often, and it’s certainly not an annual occurrence like it has become with Penn State.

Looking at last season, Penn State lost two games in which there were the betting favorites: Illinois and Michigan State.

Odds obviously vary depending on the sportsbook, but they were slight underdogs in Iowa City.

So last season, had the Nittany Lions won all the games they were favored in, they would have gone 9-3. Is that as good as we want Penn State to be? No, but it’s certainly more respectable than 7-5.

This season, there are two games that the Nittany Lions will certainly be underdogs for: at Michigan and vs Ohio State. They’re currently slight favorites for their week one matchup at Purdue, and the specific odds for the other games will not be released until closer to each game.

Two other potential matchups in which Penn State could potentially be underdogs in are at Auburn and vs Michigan State. However, ESPN’s FPI (Football Power Index) gives the Nittany Lions a 58.6% chance of beating Sparty, though they are underdogs against Auburn by that metric.

FPI gives the Tigers a 62.2% chance of defending home turf against Penn State in week three.

So with all this being said, Penn State finishing the regular season 9-3 or 10-2 would be about par for the course that is the 2022 season, as long as those two or three losses are in games that they are not favored in.

Again, is 9-3/10-2 the expectation or the end goal for this program? Absolutely not, but it’s a progression. You have to learn to walk before you can run.

If James Franklin can lead this team to a 9-3 or 10-2 regular season with a win in a bowl game, it would set the program up nicely for a run in the following years with such a young core of talent and highly rated recruiting classes on deck.