Nine games into the 2021 football season, Penn State is 6-3 and seems to have more questions today — heading into its contest against Michigan in Beaver Stadium – than answers. Definitely more questions than when it opened the season.
And, certainly, more questions than after the Nittany Lions opened the season 5-0 and ranked No. 4 in the country.
If the Nittany Lions were entering Saturday’s game undefeated or with just one loss, the following questions would be in a different order. No. 4 – “Is Franklin leaving Penn State?” would be No. 1. And I think Jimmy Sexton would agree with me.
But, it’s that far down this list for a reason. (And the reason is the answer: “No.”)
Before we get there, though, there are other, more pertinent questions, beginning with the immediate matter – Jim Harbaugh’s visiting Michigan Wolverines — at hand:
1. Will Penn State beat Michigan?
The oddsmakers are calling it almost even, with the line jumping between giving Penn State 1.5 points to giving Michigan 1 half-point. A big story line is that the game (noon, ABC) is essentially a pick ’em, even though Michigan is 8-1 and ranked No. 7 in this week’s College Football Playoff, while Penn State (6-3) did not make the CFP Top 25. The AP poll has Michigan No. 9 and Penn State No. 23.
A few interesting tidbits that may give us some indication of the final outcome:
— Michigan beat Wisconsin in Madison on Oct. 2, 38-17, while Penn State beat the Badgers 16-10, also on the road, in the Sept. 4 season-opener.
— Franklin and Harbaugh are 3-3 head-to-head, with both coaches going 2-1 at home.
— The higher-ranked team has won five games; last year, with neither team ranked, Penn State won 27-17 in Ann Arbor. PSU also won, 28-21, in 2019.
— Nationally, Michigan’s offense ranks No. 5 in red zone scores (42: 25 TDs, 17 FGs) and its defense is No. 3 in fewest red zone scores allowed (13). Penn State’s offense is No. 88 in red zone scores (25: 15 TDs, 10 FGs) and No. 36 in red zone scores allowed (22).
— Michigan’s offense is ranked No. 20 in scoring (37.1 ppg) and No. 6 in points allowed (17.1). Penn State’s offense is ranked No. 79 in scoring (27.0) and No. 10 in points allowed (16.7).
— Franklin is 2-10 against Top 10 teams at Penn State, with the wins coming against Ohio State and Wisconsin in 2016. Penn State O-coordinator Mike Yurcich is 9-11 lifetime against Top 10 teams.
2. What kind of year was/is the 2021 season?
A lot depends on Saturday.
Figure that the Nittany Lions defeat Rutgers to get to seven wins. A sweep to finish the season will get them to 9-3, with a pair of those losses forever attributable to the injury to quarterback Sean Clifford. There would be four strong and meaningful victories against Top 25 opponents: Wisconsin, Auburn, Michigan and Michigan State. A bowl game victory would raise the win total to 10, and give Franklin his fourth double-digit win season.
A split with Michigan and Michigan State would equal 8-4, with a trio of quality wins. But a loss to Michigan and loss in East Lansing would result in a very disappointing 7-5, and give Franklin a two-year mark of 11-10 and prove, perhaps, that 2020 was not an anomaly in the wake of Penn State’s tremendous 42-11 run from 2016 to 2019.
3. Will Penn State finally get its running game going?
No. With rushing totals of 50, 240, 94, 80, 209, 107, 62, 33 and 93 yards this year, there is enough of a statistical sample to back that up.
Plus, Michigan gives up just 124 yards per game, while MSU yields 125. Perhaps the Penn State run game will flash against Rutgers, which allows 162 yards per game.
Penn State’s running game is getting close to historically bad territory. Since 1950, the poorest Penn State season running the ball was in 2014, when it averaged 101.9 yards per game and 2.9 yards per carry.
So far in 2021, Penn State is averaging 3.2 yards per carry and 107 yards per game. In the 18 games of 2020-21, Penn State has had only one running back break 100 yards, and that was Keyvone Lee last season at Michigan, when he rushed for 134 yards on 22 carries.
Franklin likely saw this coming. In the offseason, he and running back coach Ju’Juan Seider heavily recruited transfer Jon Lovett, who ran for 1,803 yards at Baylor, while averaging 5.07 yards per carry. On Wednesday night, Lovett said the reason he came to Penn State for his final season of eligibility was that Franklin and Seider really pursued him. So far in 2021, Lovett has 165 yards on 35 carries.
The PSU coaches may have made a big push for Lovett due to a lack of confidence in their returning stable of Lee, Noah Cain (coming off an injury that sidelined him for nearly all of 2020), Devyn Ford and Caziah Holmes.
Right now, none of them have stood out as Lovett, Cain and Lee rotate carries. As Franklin said Wednesday, “When somebody makes it obvious that they’re the guy, they’ll be the guy.”
Nittany Lion verbal commit Nicholas Singleton thinks he’ll be “the guy” next season. Seider told him so, he said.
Singleton, one of two high school running backs slated to come to PSU next year, has 1,502 yards a 12.07-yard per carry rushing average and 30 TDs. In an interview with Audrey Snyder of The Athletic, he said, “Seider’s been telling me that I’m the one who can really take it to the house like Journey (Brown), Saquon (Barkley), Miles Sanders — those type of backs. They don’t have that explosive running back that can take it to the house. They have good running backs, but not the person that will like go for 60.”
4. Is Franklin leaving Penn State after this season?
I don’t think so.
After Penn State’s meteoric 5-0 start, I think the answer was much more likely a “yes.” But three straight losses, including that nine-overtime stinker against Illinois, severely hurt his stock on the open market.
Penn State’s three-games-in-15-days finishing stretch will tell the tale. If the Nittany Lions beat Michigan on Saturday, then Rutgers and Michigan State in two weeks, he’ll be a warm, if not, commodity.
Otherwise, he will be back for Year 9.
In recent days, the narrative has changed to Franklin wanting to finish the job he started when he arrived at Penn State in 2014, but that he needs more for the program and not himself. Check out Twitter and see reactions from certain media members to videos of new facilities at Georgia and Tennessee to see evidence of Franklin working behind the scenes.
Of course, his leverage is a lot less than it was 59 days ago, when the Nittany Lions were undefeated and his name was atop the Los Angeles Times’ list of top candidates to be the next head coach at USC. With a 10-8 record over the past two seasons, Franklin has much less juice on the coaching carousel and perhaps internally as well.
5. What is Franklin looking for, given that he just signed a new contract in February 2020 that runs through the 2025 season?
On Wednesday night, I asked Franklin the following:
The question: “From 0 to 100%, where would you say the program is these days, as far as where you want to be off the field, facilities, support – things like that – and how far do you have to go?”
His reply: “I don’t know if I could put a percentage on it without some time thinking about that. But I think you guys have heard me talk for a really long time — really since I’ve arrived here — about alignment, about competing 365 days a year. I think that’s critical for us. That has to happen.
Then, Franklin added as he pointed to Lasch Building: “I know the people in that building are doing it. I know the players are doing it. I know the coaches are doing it. But we have to compete in everything.”
Missing from his list of people who were “doing it” was his boss, VP of intercollegiate athletics, Sandy Barbour; the university president Eric Barron, who will retire in spring 2022; and the Penn State Board of Trustees, led by BOT president Matt Schuyler.
There is some urgency on Franklin’s part to get a new deal with Penn State done, since in the coming days and weeks Penn State’s search for the next president – and Franklin’s new big boss – will end with a successor to Barron being announced. And Franklin will face the same dilemma his predecessor and former fellow coach at Maryland, Bill O’Brien, faced when he was at Penn State: Who will he be working for? Adding to it all is Penn State’s recent 1-3 record on the field.
6. What does Franklin want, if he stays?
As he said earlier, “everything.”
Franklin is a deep believer in bench-marking, so there’s no doubt his staff has already done a deep dive into what other top college football programs are doing, and that could have or will include field trips to other venues.
Some things the Georgias, Tennessees, Alabamas, Clemsons and Texas A&Ms have that Franklins wants for Penn State:
A stand-alone, football-only training table. New and/or renovated dorms for football players only. Expanded and renovated space for players and coaches alike – with attendant recruit-impressing glitz, glamor and amenities – in Lasch Building that goes beyond the current project. More money for coaches and support staff, more analysts.
“Obviously, college football – you guys know this, as well as I do – it is literally competitive and a fist fight 365 days a year,” Franklin said on Wednesday. “And that’s how you have to approach it.”
Winning the fight against Michigan on Saturday would likely help Franklin win those off-the-field battles as well – whether it is at Penn State or elsewhere.
