Penn State’s 33-14 win over Pittsburgh moves the Nittany Lions to 3-2 vs. Pennsylvania teams in the James Franklin era.
After beating Pitt, James Franklin compared the Panthers to lowly Akron. There’s a lot going on here
Franklin’s long sought to associate his program more with the Big Ten’s heavyweights and less with the locals.
Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
After the game, Franklin compared beating rival Pitt to beating non-rival Akron, a soundbite I promise you was crafted to sound casually conversational. This is Franklin in his default setting.
When I visited PSU for National Signing Day in 2016, Pitt fans were sending profane faxes to the Lions’ football offices. Pitt cares. A lot. So does Temple, and for that matter, so do Rutgers and Maryland.
Even while losing to all of these teams (except Rutgers) at some point during his rebuild, Franklin was long cautious to never engage the banter and punch down, from Penn State’s perspective. However, at Vanderbilt, he was a master of punching way up and needling programs like Auburn, Georgia, and (especially) Tennessee.
So Franklin’s quote, which can fairly be taken as the kind of dismissive rival banter that exists in a state rivalry dynamic like this one, isn’t really targeted at Pitt. It’s for Penn State fans and recruits.
Beating Pitt doesn’t improve PSU’s season prospects all that much, but it’s fresh equity for Franklin with a fan base still remembering how to brag. Franklin has now excised road losses at Temple (2015) and Pitt (2016) by returning the following season with deeper, more talented teams.
Even with no offensive line, a depleted roster, and the pall of sanctions, Franklin always wanted to shift comparisons to his program toward Ohio State and Michigan, never the in-state or mid-Atlantic neighbors.
This is Franklin talking to SB Nation about the landscape of “rivals” around Happy Valley back in February 2016, when his program was 14-12 in two seasons:
There’s programs within six hours of here that had one more win [the year prior, Pitt had exactly one more win than PSU did], 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.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Penn State being down helps all the schools that surrounds us. Because when Penn State is rolling it makes it really difficult for the schools around us. So what does that create? That creates all those schools taking shots to keep us down. Because they know if they keep us down that’s the only chance for those to have the type of success they want.”
A lot of schools have a rival where that’s the rival. At Penn State, you take a six-hour radius of this campus we’re kind of unique. You probably have to get to Ohio State to get a school that’s similar, in terms of tradition and stadium size and success.
As exciting as 2016’s Pitt win was, Saturday was anticlimactic. PSU’s offense sputtered but still managed 31 points in 21 minutes of possession, and the Panthers never managed to build a threat. It’s very much September, but both Trace McSorley (three TDs from a scant 164 yards passing) and running back Saquon Barkley (183 all purpose yards, 2 TDs) are suitable Heisman contenders, and if such a thing as a joint ticket existed, there would be no contest.
Penn State’s defense hasn’t received the same level of attention as its offense. They’re quietly pretty damn good. Pitt held the ball for 38 minutes and managed only 14 points and one touchdown in 12 drives. This is a defense good enough to force turnovers (three, including a Grant Haley INT on Pitt’s first drive) to create quick, demoralizing PSU leads.
So yeah, if you at some point blew out/upset/both the Nittany Lions before they got good again, they damn sure remember, they’re probably going to get you back, and they’re almost certainly going to tell everyone that doing so didn’t really matter in the first place.
