James Franklin has Penn State in a unique situation, clearly a second-tier contender in college football, and certainly at the top of that tier. On Tuesday, after Ohio State finished off Notre Dame 34-23 in the national championship game, the Nittany Lions checked in at No. 5 in the final AP Top 25 poll of the season, the highest finish of James Franklin’s 11-year tenure at Happy Valley, but what’s more interesting is the four teams ahead of them.
Penn State fell behind Texas, which also ended its season at 13-3 and was the other College Football Playoff semifinal loser, falling to Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Then, ahead of Steve Sarkisian’s Longhorns lie the three teams that account for Penn State’s entire loss column. Franklin has taken constant criticism for not being able to “win the big one” and that’s most held true after falling to Ohio State in the regular season, Oregon in the Big Ten Championship, and Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, but he does deserve credit for rarely losing games he shouldn’t.
The best part of Penn State’s CFP resume at the end of the regular season was not that it had great wins, but that it had great losses. Penn State wasn’t the best team in the country in 2024, but the Nittany Lions did lose to the best three, and nobody else, which has to count for something.
Next season will be about getting over the hump, especially after Franklin retained quarterback Drew Allar, his talented two-head backfield of Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, and key defensive players like Zakee Wheatley, Dani Dennis-Sutton, and Zane Durant. For now, the 2024 season, which ended with massive disappointment in Miami, has to be considered a success because it was the program’s first top-five finish since 2005 under Joe Paterno. Plus, Penn State proved it belonged on the field with the three best teams in the nation.
Franklin’s three losses this season were by a combined 18 points, all three in one-score games that came down to the final minutes of the fourth quarter. The Nittany Lions were an Ohio State goalline stand away from keeping the Buckeyes out of the CFP altogether, and two late Allar interceptions from a Big Ten title and national championship game appearance. Franklin has the program knocking on the door, and with three great losses, he’s at least managed to keep the hot-seat talk at bay this offseason. However next year, close, won’t be good enough.