When Ohio State shows up, don't pick the Nits

Penn State again falls short of Big Ten royalty.

James Franklin

At this point it doesn’t matter how Penn State defines football success. Its fans, and the all-knowing general audience, have taken over that job.

James Franklin, the coach, was booed by significant chunks of the biggest crowd in Beaver Stadium history Saturday (111,030), and no doubt he was cursed inside the SUVs of the fans who were snaking their way through unmerciful traffic, back to Lancaster and Allentown and Reading. Penn State had lost to Ohio State again, had very likely fallen short of the Big Ten championship game again, had broken all the hearts that hadn’t been hardened by all these Columbus Days. It was only 20-13, but far outside the margin of error.

In moments like this, the Nittany Lions are grateful they don’t wear names on their jerseys. Franklin’s teams are 1-10 against Ohio State. They are 3-22 against Top Ten teams generally. They’re really good in other situations. They’ve won at least 10 games five different times for Franklin, and they’ve had 14 players drafted the past two years, and they’ve been to two Rose Bowls, and they did win the Big Ten in 2016, when they had a two-touchdown lead over USC in the fourth quarter and forgot to win. They’ve had Saquan Barkley and Micah Parsons. They’ve finished in the AP’s final Top 12 six times, which is interesting because the College Football Playoff goes to 12 teams this season.

And Franklin, who had won at Vanderbilt, came to Penn State only two years after the last cataclysmic days of Joe Paterno. In 2021 he signed a seven year, $70 million contract, and if Penn State decides to fire him, they will owe him $56.67 million. That might happen in the world of the Detroit Pistons, but not at Penn State.

This was one of the more galling repetitions of history, because Ohio State had looked pedestrian against Nebraska the previous week and had some offensive line instability. The Nittany Lions jumped out 10-0, thanks to a 31-yard interception return by Zion Tracy. They would score no other touchdowns. Their prize running backs, Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, would gain 42 yards in 18 carries. Quarterback Drew Allar ran valiantly but, all too often, was facing an up-the-middle delayed blitz that made him hurry. Tight end Tyler Warren, maybe their most consistent weapon, ran three times and caught four passes.

Two sequences will hang over the Penn State program like mountain fog. At the end of the first half the Nits had first-and-goal from the three. Allar looked for Harrison Wallace, whom he had found for 21 yards on the previous play, and threw it in the vicinity of his hands. The ball bounced off those hands and into those of Davison Igbinosun, the brash cornerback who gathered it in and got one foot down in bounds, for a spectacular, and soul-sucking, interception.

Penn State would revisit the red zone when Warren rumbled 33 yards to the three. But three runs by Allen got only two yards. On fourth and goal from the one, Warren drifted out from the backfield but was eyed by two Buckeyes, so Allar tried to find Khalil Dinkins down the middle. No dice.

But no real problem either, right? The Buckeyes were backed up and Penn State had all its time outs. The clock read 5:13. Surely the Nittany Lions would get the ball back.

Instead, Ohio State’s Will Howard flipped it to the officials 5:13 later. The Buckeyes had oozed from their one to Penn State’s 40. Ten plays, ten runs. There is no more contemptuous way to clinch a football game.

Year after year Ohio State finds those plays while Penn State looks for its car keys. The quick answer is that Ohio State is and has been better than Penn State and almost everyone else outside the SEC during that time. In this case, the Buckeyes had already been to Oregon and lost by a point. They had experienced a close game in a deafening place and knew what to expect, although they have transfers galore, like Howard (Kansas State), Quinshon Jenkins (Ole Miss) and Igbinosun (Ole Miss) who have played at Texas and Alabama and LSU.

Penn State doesn’t normally take chances with its schedule. It had a 2-game set with Auburn while Auburn was in between good times, and this year it opened with West Virginia, but they often come into their biggest games with a bit of irrational exuberance.

The Nittany Lions last won a national championship in 1986, when they knocked off Vinny Testaverde and Miami in the Fiesta Bowl. It was Paterno’s second, but he also had three other unbeaten seasons. Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993 and won it in 1994, and Paterno won it again in 2005 and 2008. It has won it only once since. Ask USC about Big Ten play. The wins and losses fade through the fall, but the bruises don’t.

On the way into the tunnel, someone got too close and too loud for Franklin to let it go. “If you’re going to be man enough to talk, what’s your name?” Franklin asked him. He’s entitled to that, but there are more rational, less impulsive conversations that he, and the fans, need to have. Maybe he should ask for a town hall.

Otherwise, here’s some confetti from the weekend:

SMU 48, Pittsburgh 25: The Mustangs and Miami are the only teams undefeated in ACC play, and they don’t play each other. Pittsburgh was undefeated before it made this trip to Dallas. SMU led 34-3 at one point and got 71 and 18 yard touchdown runs from Brashard Smith, and quarterback Kevin Jennings threw for 306 yards and two scores. SMU shut down the run and forced Pitt to throw 59 passes. Rhett Lashlee’s team won the American Athletic last year and is 5-0 in ACC play, becoming the first team to win its first five games after moving up to a power conference.

Texas Tech 23, Iowa State 22: Quarterback Behren Morton shook up the Big 12 standings with a 12-play, 71-yard drive that ended in Tahj Brooks’ running touchdown. That gave the Cyclones their first league loss, after Rocco Becht had found Carson Brown on a 44-yard touchdown with 2:11 left. BYU now leads the Big 12 at 5-0 with Iowa State and Colorado at 4-1. Colorado has to visit Texas Tech next week, which means it has to deal with Brooks, who gained 122 yards and has over 4,000 for his career. He has broken 100 yards in each of his nine games this season.

Colorado State 38, Nevada 21: The Rams are 4-0 in the Mountain West, tied with Boise State, but they probably won’t score a more bizarre touchdown than the one that put them up 28-0. Nevada’s kickoff returners had communication problems that allowed Caleb Goodie to hit returner Sean Dollars at the one-yard-line. The ball popped into the end zone where Jace Bellah of CSU recovered it. Jordan Noyes booted a 60-yard field goal for CSU, which is 6-3 and has apparently recovered from a season-opening 52-0 loss at Texas.

Boise State 56, San Diego State 24: It was another showcase for Heisman Trophy longshot Ashton Jeanty, who took the ball 31 times, lugged in 149 yards and put it in the end zone twice. That’s in three quarters of play. Jeanty is the nation’s leading rusher by a margin of 381 yards over second-place Kaleb Johnson of Iowa, and his 20 rush touchdowns are four more than anyone else has. The Broncos have lost only to Oregon and are in the running for a Group of Five spot in the 12-team playoff. Quarterback Maddux Madsen went 24 for 32 for 307 yards and four touchdowns when the Aztecs paid too much attention to Jeanty.

South Carolina 44, Texas A&M 20: A week after the Aggies came back to beat LSU at home, they were reminded of why the SEC is a Dead Man’s Curve. South Carolina has been erratic at 5-3, but they have one of the very best freshman quarterbacks in LaNorris Sellers, and he rampaged for 244 yards passing, 106 yards touchdowns, and three touchdowns all told. Rahiem Sanders also dashed for a 52-yard TD to begin what turned out to be a 24-0 second half. Sanders wound up with 144 yards. “Obviously I did a poor job getting our guys to understand how you tackle a 240-pound guy,” said A&M coach Dave Elko. The Aggies, Georgia, Tennessee, LSU and Texas have just one SEC loss.