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Heather Dinich, Senior College Football Insider
No sugar coating. Penn State coach James Franklin has an abysmal 4-19 record against opponents ranked in the Associated Press top 10, and although his teams are also ranked in the top 10, they are just 3-10 in those games.
Penn State’s 31-14 College Football Playoff quarterfinal win over No. 8 Boise State in the VRBO Fiesta Bowl marked a small but significant boost to its record, but with each step up in the CFP bracket comes a bigger opportunity. -And there are greater doubts about Franklin’s ability to beat the best.
The story surrounding Big Ten runner-up and No. 6 seed Penn State in the College Football Playoff was that their easiest path to the national title was a home game against dominant 11th-seeded SMU, followed by a home game. A matchup against Mountain West Conference champion and No. 3 seed Boise State. The Nittany Lions have outscored their first two playoff opponents a combined 69-24.
Franklin is now two wins away from the school’s first national championship since 1986. But to win, he has to do something that has eluded him for most of his career: beat a top-five team. He is 1-14 against AP top-five teams at Penn State, with his only win coming against No. 2 Ohio State in 2016. By comparison, former Alabama coach Nick Saban (30-16), former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer (14-5) and Georgia coach Kirby Smart (11-7) all have winning records against AP top-five opponents, according to ESPN Research. I have it. . But Ohio State coach Ryan Day is 5-6 against them, and former Penn State coach Joe Paterno is 3-12 in his first 15 games against AP top-five teams at Penn State. I did it.
Franklin is also 0-5 against teams ranked in the top five by the CFP selection committee, and he has lost those games by an average of 20.4 points, according to ESPN Research. The Nittany Lions will face Notre Dame (No. 3 AP/No. 5 CFP) in the College Football Playoff semifinals on Thursday at the Capital One Orange Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). This is undoubtedly the biggest game at Franklin’s. job.
Franklin “understands” the fans’ frustration. He declined to comment for this story, but spoke after a 20-13 loss to No. 4 Ohio State on Nov. 2. “Nobody looks in the mirror harder than me. I’ve said it before, 99 percent of the time, programs across college football are not going to be able to do what we were able to do while we were here.”
Despite struggling against top teams, Franklin entered the Orange Bowl with a 101-41 record and is 64-33 in the Big Ten over the last 10 years in State College. This includes five top-10 finishes, a Big Ten title (2016) and a regular appearance in a New Year’s Six bowl game. Under Franklin, Penn State joins Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State as the only programs to be ranked in the selection committee’s final top 12 in at least seven of the last nine seasons.
There are six years left on his contract and the administration’s support period.
“I’m not going to believe the criticism, because I see it differently,” said Penn State athletic director Patrick Kraft, who was hired by Penn State on July 1, 2022, after serving as athletic director for two years at Boston College. . “When I got here, I was really surprised at how the infrastructure and everything was set up and how far behind we really were. Yes, wins and losses are what we’re all judged on, but I’ll tell you about the culture. The building and what he brought in and The young people graduating are second to none.
“It’s not like you’re a fan or someone watching behind the curtain,” Kraft said. “What permeates me when I’m behind the curtain is the culture and the family. It’s the way it’s really built. The infrastructure behind it hasn’t matched that culture and we still have a long way to go. Yes, we want to win every game . That’s the expectation for every program, but what he’s done and the consistency to me is amazing.”
As a former Big Ten head coach who spent seven seasons leading Indiana, first-year Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen has studied the Nittany Lions inside and out. He developed a game plan against Franklin and is now trying to help Franklin win its first national title. Allen heard Franklin’s criticisms while he was in Indiana, and again as a member of Franklin’s staff.
“Now that I’m here, I’ve seen the behind-the-scenes stuff, the daily routine, and I’ve seen how much of a bulldog he is. That’s the word I use. He’s a bulldog when it comes to details and little things. He knows everything that’s going on.” Allen said. “To me, that criticism isn’t fair, but it’s going to continue until we win big games. I think we all understand that as coaches.”
What Franklin accomplished so far is often overshadowed by what he did not accomplish. When Franklin won his 100th game at Penn State in the first round against SMU, he became the fourth FBS coach to win 100 games at a school since heading to State College in 2014, according to ESPN Research. In elite company, he joins Clemson’s Dabo Swinney (129 since 2014), Alabama’s Nick Saban (127 since 2014-23) and Kirby Smart of Georgia (105 since 2016).
But there is one thing that sets Franklin apart from the rest. That’s multiple national titles.
“We don’t deviate from expectations,” Kraft said. “Being the head coach at Penn State, there’s a lot of scrutiny on him and he handles it very well internally. He and I are partners in this.”
One current Big Ten head coach said Franklin’s expectations should reflect the resources he has to work with.
“Ryan Day was in a championship, Clemson was in a championship, Bama won a championship, Michigan won a championship,” he said. “If Penn State expects him to have at least played in a championship in 10 years of his tenure, he hasn’t been successful, right? If their expectations are, ‘Hey, we just gave him the resources to win 10 games.’ , a team to watch on January 1st, from a resources perspective, is at the bottom of the Blue Bloods. Well, then he fits the expectations of a 10-win player, you know, like Clemson, like Michigan, we. Because you’re receiving resources like the people you’re comparing to, so it’s not fair to have those expectations.”
Kraft said much of Penn State’s growth under Franklin has been done behind the scenes with work such as building the NIL budget, assistant coach salaries, stadium renovations and improvements for Penn State student-athletes in all sports in areas such as mental health. , nutrition, travel, etc. are all things that ultimately contribute to winning a national title, but also happen off the field.
“We have to build the infrastructure internally,” Kraft said. “I think what’s really improved is allowing him and all of our sports to do what they need to do internally to get to a championship level.”
The second Big Ten head coach said there are two most notable improvements for Penn State and Franklin this year. The hiring of two proven coordinators in Allen and offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, as well as Franklin’s overall growth as a head coach in certain situations.
“I think James is surrounded by probably the best coordinator combo in our league,” the source said. “Now James can manage the game for the first time and do what he does well. He is on a different level as a manager.
“Okay, I understand the story,” the coach said. “But it’s probably based more on the past than the present. He even has a better understanding of how to use players. He was at Penn. For a long time, he’s always been the favorite, so these games where he’s the underdog.” When you’re in, not only do you have to play differently, you have to strategize differently, and when he ran that fake punt against Minnesota… I don’t think he’s had to do that before, and he said, ‘This is what I have to do to win this game.’ I kind of realized that it was my job to do. You can’t win that with talent alone.”
Kotelnicki said Franklin doesn’t get enough recognition for performing as consistently well as he has. From 2016 to 2019, Franklin led Penn State to 42 wins, the most in program history in the Big Ten era, and a school-record 28 conference wins.
“It’s really hard to win, it’s really hard to do it for over 10 years as I’ve been the head football coach here,” Kotelnicki said in the Nittany Lions’ locker room after the win over Boise State. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with some pretty good coaches in my life. He’s definitely in elite company. So I don’t know if (beating Boise State) will silence the critics. Probably not. . . . But the guy “I hope it calms me down a little bit for you to say, ‘Okay, okay, I think it’s okay.’”
Penn State’s defense was more than “OK” in its Fiesta Bowl win over Boise State and will need to play at a championship level if Franklin wants to improve his record and advance against the Irish. Defense is at the core of Penn State’s problems in previous top-10 matchups, according to ESPN Research. The Nittany Lions allowed 31 points per game and 422 total yards in that matchup. The defense has also allowed 190 rushing yards per game under Franklin in top-10 matchups.
Against Boise State and Ashton Jeanty, the Heisman runner-up had a season-low 104 rushing yards. This trend must continue. Notre Dame has relied on its running game this season, ranking in the top five in yards per rush and rushing touchdowns.
Penn State will play its third AP Top-5 matchup of the season, having lost its previous two games against Ohio State and Oregon. The program’s problems go deeper than Franklin’s. The Nittany Lions haven’t won a top-five matchup against No. 4 Arizona since 1999.
“We have to do a good job of blocking that, but we also have to not be afraid to figure out how to make a difference,” Allen said. “The way I see it is that he’s saying, ‘Hey, what can we do?’ And there’s constant evaluation of how we practice, and there’s a game plan if something doesn’t go a certain way. “I think he’s been very relentless in that regard as a leader in our program, so I think that’s the issue.”
