James Franklin has done good things at Penn State. He’s shepherded the Nittany Lions through the aftereffects of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, and he’s signed strong recruiting classes despite rivals trying to use someone else’s wrongs against him.
Ohio State is James Franklin’s last chance in 2016 to get his 1st-ever signature win
The knock on Penn State’s coach is that he hasn’t yet won a big one. This would be a big one.
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Franklin hasn’t lost many clunkers. Falling to Illinois in 2014 wasn’t great, nor was Temple in 2015. But there haven’t been colossal failures against cupcakes.
The thing Franklin hasn’t done is beat a team that finished ranked — even going back to his time at Vanderbilt — let alone any of the elite programs at the top of his own Big Ten East. He’s never beaten a Power 5 team that finished with nine or more wins, according to ESPN’s Chris Fallica.
Franklin’s first two years brought a combined 0-6 record against Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State.
The Lions were blown out in Ann Arbor this fall. Michigan State’s swift downfall means Franklin’s home game against the No. 2 Buckeyes on Saturday (8 p.m. ET, ABC) represents his last shot of the year to beat someone great.
A loss would mean 0-8 over three years against the division’s best, plus a 4-3 2016 record heading into a home stretch whose best opponent is either 3-3 Indiana or 5-2 Iowa. There’d be no bowl game against any opponent worth fussing over, either, with a 9-3 ceiling installed.
This shortcoming is not, on its own, a great argument against Franklin.
This year is Franklin’s first with a full complement of scholarships, a result of the NCAA’s post-Sandusky sanctioning. The number of coaches who’d have beaten Playoff champ Ohio State in 2014 or Playoff participant Michigan State last year is low. The number who’d have done it with 75 or 80 scholarships is a rounding error.
Penn State isn’t going to fire Franklin for not beating any of the teams he wasn’t supposed to beat, especially not when he was so disadvantaged. Even if Ohio State crushes Penn State after Michigan’s 49-10 romp in September, that’d just mean a pair of losses against two of the top five teams. Wisconsin, which is widely regarded as a top-10 team, just lost to both of them, too.
Still, going three years sans a cornerstone win wouldn’t be a good look.
That’s because Franklin’s a salesman as much as he’s a football coach, and he’s sold Penn State from the beginning as a place that demands success.
“Take another program where we go 7-6,” Franklin told SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey last winter, bringing up in-state foe Pitt without mentioning it by name. “There’s other programs that have very similar records, and because the expectation is not the same at those programs, at those places, it’s viewed completely different. There’s programs within hours of here that had one more win, but you would think they played for a national championship. But again, that goes back to the expectation at Penn State. To me, that’s a good thing.”
A Franklin-pushed slogan at Penn State has said the Lions are “Unrivaled.” He’s referred to neighboring states as “in-state” for recruiting purposes. He’s tried to make Penn State look like one of the big boys, and that can wear thin if you don’t beat a single one of the big boys.
For his career, Franklin’s 0-18 against teams that finished ranked, 0-19 if we assume Michigan will finish in the top 25. Most coaches have bad records against ranked teams, and it shouldn’t be a scarlet letter, because ranked teams are good teams. But 0-19 is 0-19, and if it becomes 0-20 or 0-21, it starts to smell.
This would be the biggest win of Franklin’s life.
Expectations around Penn State would shift quickly. More than 100,000 people are going to fill up Beaver Stadium for the team’s annual whiteout game, and a bunch of recruits are going to be there. PSU would have every right to make a big thing out of it if the Lions can win. It’d mean a lot.
Penn State has been around a 20-point home underdog all week, which feels a bit high to some bettors. Bill Connelly’s S&P+ projection model gives the Lions a 27 percent chance to win, which seems about right. It probably won’t happen, but maybe Saquon Barkley can get loose against a sometimes leaky run defense. Maybe Penn State can do it.
Unlikely as it is, it’s not unfathomable. Franklin could certainly use it.
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