COLUMBUS, Ohio — No. 7 Penn State entered the famed Ohio Stadium on Saturday having accomplished just about everything a program can short of appearing in the College Football Playoff.
A Big Ten Conference title. Three New Year’s Six bowl wins in four attempts. Five top-12 finishes in the CFP rankings. Enough alums in the NFL to field almost an entire 53-man roster. It’s a resume that holds up against all but the small handful of programs that have dominated the sport for this decade of the four-team format.
That success should have the Nittany Lions poised for more as college football hurdles toward its latest season of major change, which will include realignment into megaconferences that stretch from coast to coast and a 12-team playoff format that promises more high-stakes matchups than ever before beginning in 2024.
It’s not hard to daydream about whited-out playoff crowds at Beaver Stadium. High-profile road trips to face USC and UCLA in sunny southern California. Or Washington and Oregon in the rugged Pacific Northwest. Even a national championship or two if a few breaks go the Nittany Lions’ way.
More than third-ranked Ohio State itself, it was the weight of history that the Nittany Lions were facing on the crisp Horseshoe turf. A last, best chance to take down their nemesis that has stood in their way for this past decade and give themselves a chance to participate at the highest level in this waning era of the sport the way lesser programs including Michigan State, TCU, Cincinnati and Washington have.
To take the step from great program to elite program that coach James Franklin spoke of five years ago after a frustrating home loss to this same Ohio State team. On their terms. And not because the sport lowered the barrier for entry to the playoff party for them.
Instead, the afternoon followed a drearily familiar script observed by 105,506 scarlet-clad fans in a 20-12 loss.
In a tightly played contest characteristic of this series, a pivotal second quarter was a microcosm of what’s separated these programs for all these years. With the Buckeyes driving in a 3-3 game, linebacker Curtis Jacobs appeared to strip sack Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord, recover his own forced fumble and return it 60 yards to give the Nittany Lions a 9-3 lead. The energy was sucked from the building as the first big break had appeared to go to the visitors.
Nope. The play was wiped out by a holding penalty on cornerback Kalen King, advancing the ball to the Penn State 16-yard line.
If that weren’t bad enough, Penn State was flagged on two of the next four snaps, too. King drew more laundry by interfering with Ohio State star Marvin Harrison Jr. Then Kobe King was called for a late hit after appearing to stack up a running play in the backfield, advancing the ball to the Penn State 2.
Ohio State’s Miyan Williams scored on the next play. The tally was only 10-3 with a lot of time left, but that 14-point swing in the matter of a couple minutes might as well count for a million when these two teams play.
Like last year in State College — when Ohio State turned a 21-16 deficit with about eight minutes to play into a 41-31 win — it only took a few plays for a lot of good defensive work otherwise to go up in smoke.
Some will blame offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich for the game plan, and that’s more than fair when your team doesn’t score a touchdown until the final 30 seconds. He failed to draw up much in the way of easy throws for Drew Allar to get him in a rhythm. His unit was 1 for 16 on third down. And he got star running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen just 18 carries, even as Singleton showed some burst in averaging 5.3 yards per carry and the game was within a possession for most of the way.
Some will blame Allar, who wilted amid the pressure of his first start against a team of this caliber. “I sucked,” he told reporters afterward. That’s fair, too. He was 18 for 42 for 191 yards and a touchdown. Not good, even as he survived yet another game without throwing his first career interception. There was little evidence of chemistry with his guys.
Some will blame Allar’s targets for failing to create the separation necessary to allow Allar to show off his five-star-rated arm talent. KeAndre Lambert-Smith remains the only guy he can find with consistency. The others too frequently either aren’t open or — in some cases — aren’t even looking for the ball to be thrown their way. Only Lambert-Smith and tight end Theo Johnson are over 200 yards for a season that’s seven games old.
And some will defend the defense. Rightfully so. Even despite its gaffes on that critical drive, it kept the offense in the game. Harrison cooked for 11 catches worth 165 yards and a score. But McCord was made to look mortal — 22 for 35 for 286 yards and a score — and no one else really stood out with top talents TreVeyon Henderson and Emeka Egbuka limited because of injuries. A heroic goal-line stand deep into the third quarter prevented Ohio State from taking a two-score lead.
None of those arguments are really wrong. Perhaps just a bit myopic. In the macro, Penn State was Ohio State’s peer for 90% of the game, yet again, and lost its poise at the crucial juncture.
The problem isn’t more complicated than that for Franklin, who now has nine losses against these Buckeyes on his ledger. It’s not just a couple of bad breaks in a couple of games for him at this point. He’s consistently outcoached on the little things that determine games of this magnitude.
Were the playoff format not changing, you’d have to say he’s reached his ceiling at Penn State, to the point it would be worth discussing whether he should be replaced.
“What I’ll talk about is today,” Franklin said afterward, demurring on a question of whether his track record against Ohio State should be a referendum on him. “We lost to a really good football team on the road. We had our chances. We battled. We weren’t able to capitalize. Big-picture things, I’ll be happy to talk about at some point.”
Granted, Penn State is not out of chances quite yet. No. 2 Michigan awaits in a Veterans Day showdown back in Happy Valley. It’s the Wolverines — not the Buckeyes — who are two-time defending Big Ten champs and have not dropped a conference game since 2021.
If Penn State wins that game and wins out, it’ll have a playoff resume to rival anyone’s, despite this loss.
Of the two, though, Ohio State has always seemed like the more favorable matchup. Losses to Michigan the past couple of years have pierced the aura of invincibility the Buckeyes have carried for most of the past decade. And Penn State was about eight minutes away from beating them in State College a year ago.
Michigan also isn’t the proverbial brass ring that Ohio State has been. Despite coach Jim Harbaugh and Co.’s recent success, Penn State has won three of the past six meetings, sometimes in convincing fashion.
For those reasons, this one might be tougher to get over psychologically than it is practically. All of that belief, over all of those years, that this program might one day stand up to this particular annual test and take on the mantle of the Big Ten’s best head to head is being left on this field.
New challenges and possibly greater triumphs await. Maybe they’ll come this year with a win over Michigan. Maybe they’ll come in future years against the Huskies, Ducks, Trojans and Bruins.
But this particular chapter of Penn State’s history is closed in a decidedly dissatisfying way. With no grand payoff that fans have spent so many years dreaming about. The Nittany Lions won’t even face their border rival every year under the expanded Big Ten’s new divisionless scheduling format.
That can only be the best. It doesn’t seem Franklin’s program will ever have the juice to beat this team to get where it wants to go.
Time to find a different route.
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24
First Published: October 21, 2023, 9:30 p.m.
Updated: October 22, 2023, 3:17 a.m.
