With James Franklin, Penn State lost to top-five-ranked opponents. Without James Franklin, Penn State keeps losing to top-five opponents. The Nittany Lions suffered their second-straight top-five loss on Saturday, falling to Indiana 27-24 at Beaver Stadium after taking a fourth-quarter lead. It was the team’s third top five loss of the season.
It’s no mystery that a track record of winning big games will weigh heavily in Penn State’s coaching search. This week, though, most of the Nittany Lions’ top candidates didn’t pull off big wins, so this week’s power rankings don’t inspire a ton of confidence.
Off the board with extensions:
- Curt Cignetti, Indiana
- Matt Rhule, Nebraska
Not likely to leave:
- Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame
- Mike Elko, Texas A&M
Not likely to leave for Penn State:
- Lane Kiffin
Penn State head coach candidate power rankings:
Vanderbilt’s lack of elite SEC athletes has been exposed across the last two weeks, but Clark Lea’s offensive coordinator Tim Beck found crucial offensive adjustments to spark a 489-yard performance from Diego Pavia as he led a huge comeback win over Auburn.
Lea has proven to be an elite program builder with a staff that has knack for finding players who fit his team’s system and maximizing their skillsets. However, he and Beck are also showing an ability to shape-shift to fit their circucumstances and the counter-punch they showed in Week 11 makes Lea and his entire staff highly desirable.
Matt Campbell looked to be potentially fading away among Penn State’s candidates, but he responded with an important upset win over TCU in Week 11. Getting Dominique Orange back at nose tackle was a huge piece of getting the Cyclones’ defense back on track, but many of Iowa State’s injuries in the secondary have been season-ending.
Yet, Iowa State forced Josh Hoover into two interceptions and won despite just nine completions from Rocco Becht and two interceptions of his own. Campbell’s teams play opportunistic football and win games they’re not supposed to, like this one when they were outgained 432-272.
Brian Hartline made his case to be the next Penn State head coach last week against the Nittany Lions with Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, two wide receivers he recruited and developed at Ohio State, dominating the proceedings. This week, with Tate out of the game, Smith had the most receptions of his career with 10 for 137 yards and a touchdown.
In Hartline’s first year as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, he may lead a redshirt freshman quarterback to the Heisman Trophy, so while the Buckeyes’ win over Purdue on Saturday wasn’t particularly remarkable, Hartline’s resume grows more impressive every week.
Eli Drinkwitz was dealt a very difficult hand down the stretch of this season, losing Beau Pribula to an injury, which forced him to give true freshman Matt Zollers his first start on Saturday against the No. 3 team in the country.
Drinkwitz has been an excellent talent developer, but Zollers just wasn’t ready for that type of challenge. He finished 7-for-22 for 77 yards in a 38-17 loss.
Jeff Brohm wins the big games. He’s 4-2 all-time against top-five opponents, but for the second time this year, he lost a game when he should have handled business. Louisville allowed Cal true freshman Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele to carve his team’s defense for 323 passing yards and two touchdowns while Miller Moss struggled to handle the pressure that the Golden Bears manufactured.
Brohm is an elite play-caller and one of the game’s preeminent QB whisperers, but he seems to have whiffed on his evaluation of Moss, who has been held back by the same fatal flaws that caused him to be benched for Jayden Maiava at USC. Brohm isn’t a high-level recruiter, so he needs to be perfect in the transfer portal, and that’s not easy.
Duke lost to UConn in Week 11. Frankly, it’s not a significant loss for Duke’s College Football Playoff aspirations because the team’s only path was to win the ACC before this week, and that’s still the case even with Manny Diaz’s team sitting at 5-4.
However, Duke lost to UConn in Week 11. That’s not good.