The problem with Penn State football is that there is no single answer to why the Nittany Lions can’t quite get over the hump. Penn State is not a program clearly, obviously, unequivocally lacking in any given area. It just has to be better, and what that means is up for debate.
Recruiting? Penn State does it — generally — about as well as anyone. Attendance? It goes without saying. Passionate fans? Obviously. Coaching? You can point here, but defining what that means quickly turns into a mushy belief that pretty much everything comes back to coaching. Which might be true, but has Penn State lost to Michigan and Ohio State because it’s poorly coached or for some other reason? That question marches us back toward debate rather than fact.
All of this is to say that 10 years ago when Penn State was fighting through crippling sanctions the issues and the solutions were pretty self-evident. Now it’s a less clear cut situation.
Which brings us back to two opponents Penn State has faced in bowl games under Franklin’s watch: Georgia (2015) and Washington (2017). A win next Monday and Washington could bring the combined national title count to three in the years since both teams faced the Nittany Lions.
For their part, even if the Bulldogs aren’t taking part in this year’s national title game, they are currently the gold standard of college football. Under Kirby Smart (who Penn State did not face in 2015), Georgia has become a juggernaut of success, efficient offense, smothering defense and elite recruiting. Everything Georgia does, it does better than just about everyone else at every intersection.
Of course, it wasn’t always this way.
“Smart [found success] because on Day 1 he was able to convince the decision-makers at his alma mater to finally go all-in toward being the nation’s best football program. Not one of the best. The best,” Gentry Estes wrote in the Tennesseean. “…I wouldn’t say UGA’s program had been a sleeping giant. It was awake. It was just too gentle a giant, maybe – a bit lackadaisical, certainly not as serious about winning as, say, you-know-who in Tuscaloosa. (Note: I say that as someone who in 2010 got a direct contrast by going from a job covering Saban’s Alabama to one covering Richt’s Georgia.)“
Gentry goes on to expand on how that took place (read it at the link above), but it boils down to an overarching commitment to spending money, expanding staff and resources and dedicating itself to an unwavering desire not to half-ass things. Oh, and don’t forget recruiting and development. To a certain extent, the degree to which Georgia has found success is a unique case but a worthwhile one to examine. Make a good hire, get the better players than everyone else and then throw everything you have behind it.
Back in State College, James Franklin’s public optimism that Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft, President Neeli Bendapudi and Penn State Board of Trustees Chair Matthew Schuyler are on the same page as him has been telling. Kraft in particular has been a public advocate for Penn State’s need to set the pace. An aggressive infrastructure agenda on campus and within Beaver Stadium matches those words. Bendapudi has had scant public comment on football but doesn’t appear to be an impediment. As for Schuyler, Franklin has rarely balked at the opportunity to give him praise, something reflected as Schuyler walked the sidelines at the Peach Bowl.
Whether or not this support should have come following Penn State’s success in 2016 and 2017 under the previous administration will forever be an ongoing debate. Nevertheless, it’s here now.
And then there’s Washington.
In some regards the Huskies are a more comparable to where Penn State is right now than Georgia. Since these two teams met in 2017, Washington has changed coaches twice, now landing on head coach Kalen DeBoer who heads into his second season at 25-2 and a win from a national title. Of course, DeBoer had an ace-in-the-hole the entire way to this point: quarterback Michael Penix, an electric, accurate and dynamic playmaker who had ties with DeBoer when both were at Indiana in 2019.
“Success begins with strong relationships,” DeBoer said prior to the season. “Throughout history, it is clear that the greatest teams are those with the strongest bonds. In these environments, players, coaches and staff members commit to each other and sacrifice themselves for the good of the group. With tight knit connections, there are no limits to what we can achieve. We are hard at work building relationships within our team, around the UW campus and throughout Seattle. Our future is bright.
“There’s so much to build from from last year’s season. The momentum that we carried through the end of the year, just finishing strong. It’s a big deal. I think it helped with just the energy around the program, the buzz. Also, I think it played an impact and role in retention, keeping a lot of our guys from maybe moving on to the NFL. Wanting to experience a bigger and better year. It’s been an awesome off-season. The guys and all their goals that they have, it’s supported by the work they’re putting in and actions.”
DeBoer’s relationship with Penix is the thing to drive home here. Washington may very well have been a good team without him, something similar to Penn State’s perpetual success cut short by the elite, but Penix is the epitome of how much a single player can change everything. All the coaching in the world can’t give you what Penix brings to the table, so even though Penn State has gone 52-22 since facing Washington and the Huskies have gone a comparable 50-20, Washington has a Penix. Penn State hasn’t.
Which might bring us back to the argument James Franklin has been making for a while now — in different words — that it’s better to always be knocking on the door than be a bad team most of the time and then counting on making the most of everything when you finally get your shot.
“[You have to] catch a couple breaks along the way, we know that, to win a championship,” DeBoer said. “That’s what you need. You make your own breaks. I think that comes through hard work, building great chemistry. Helps you through the tough times that we know are going to come each and every year.”
Under DeBoer the Huskies are a whopping 7-1 in one-score games against ranked teams. Penn State over the previous two seasons the Nittany Lions are 0-1, either winning or losing by bigger than one score margins along the way. Making your breaks indeed.
Summarized there are two schools of thoughts of what needs to happen next for Penn State in the brave new world of an expanded Big Ten to be more like Georgia or Washington. Penn State either has to coach better when it matters, or it has to accumulate better players in positions of note and find the supporting cast to make the most of them. Whatever Drew Allar’s shortcomings might have been during his first season as a starter, they were only exacerbated by a nearly invisible receivers room.
In truth, the answer is somewhere between the two. Penn State simply has to be better at everything it can control. It also has to be unwavering in its aggression when it comes to player acquisition, retention and development.
The good news for Penn State is that the Nittany Lions’ addition of Andy Kotelnicki and Tom Allen both appear to be forward thinking hires. If they’re able to dovetail improved personnel with increased administrative support there’s no reason Penn State can’t eventually ride the same wave as Georgia and Washington.
“But all of these things I mentioned to you have to get done. We have to get all of these – the nutrition, the travel, the mental health support, the physical support, all of these things have to get done or we won’t be able to achieve what we want to do,” Kraft said recently. “That’s why I’m so aggressive to get it ready, so that we can attack those. They are coming and it’s going to be a different day, one that we are all excited about.”
All the optimism in the world won’t change a very simple fact though: Penn State played Georgia and Washington programs operating on the same tier, and by the time Monday night comes around, two of those three teams could have national titles not long thereafter.
