Loss to Buckeyes a familiar fate
COLUMBUS,Ohio — Penn State entered the famed Ohio Stadium on Saturday having accomplished just about everything a program can short of appearing in the College FootballPlayoff.
A Big Ten Conference title. Three New Year’s Six bowl winsin four attempts. Five top 12 finishes in the CFP rankings. It’s a resume that holds up against all but the small handfulof programs that have dominated the sport for this decade of the four-team format.
That success should have the No. 7 Nittany Lions poised for more as college football hurtles toward its latest season of major change, which will include realignment into mega conferences that stretch from coast to coast and a 12team playoff format that promises more high-stakes matchups than ever before beginningin 2024.
Morethan the third-ranked Buckeyes themselves, it was the weight of history that the Lions were facing on the crisp Horseshoe turf. A last, best chance to take down their nemesisthat has stood in their way for this past decade and give themselves a chance to participate at the highest level inthis waning era of the sport.
To take the step from great program to elite program that coach James Franklin spoke of five years ago after a frustrating home loss to this same Ohio State team. On their terms.
Instead, the afternoon followed a drearily familiar scriptin a 20-12 loss.
Ina tightly played contest, a pivotal second-quarter was a microcosm of what’s separated these programs. With the Buckeyes driving in a 3-3 game, linebacker Curtis Jacobs appeared to strip sack Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord, recover his own forced fumble and return it 60
yards to give the Lions a 9-3 lead. The energy was sucked fromthe building.
Nope. The play was wiped out by a holding penalty on cornerback Kalen King, advancing the ball to Penn State’s16.
If that weren’t bad enough, Penn State was flagged on two of the next four snaps, too, advancing the ball to the 2.
Ohio State’s Miyan Williams scored on the next play. The tally was only 10-3 with a lot of time left, but that 14point swing in the matter of a couple minutes might as well count for a million when these two teams play.
Like last year in State College — when Ohio State erased a late 21-1-6 deficit — it took only a few plays for a lot of good defensive work otherwiseto go up in smoke.
Some will blame offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, and that’s more than fair when your team doesn’t score a touchdown until the final 30 seconds. He failed to draw up much in the way of easy throws for Allar to get him in a rhythm.
Some will blame Allar, who wilted amid the pressure of his first start against a team of
this caliber. “I sucked,” he told reporters afterward. That’s fair, too. He was 18 for 42 for 191 yards and a touchdown. Not good.
Some will blame Allar’s targets for failing to create the separation necessary to allow Allar to show off his five-star rated arm talent. KeAndre Lambert-Smith remains the only guy he can find with consistency.
And some will defend the defense. Rightfully so. Even despite its gaffes on that critical drive, it kept the offense in the game. Harrison Jr. cooked for 11 catches worth 165 yards and a score. But McCord was made to look mortal, and no one else really stood.
None of those arguments is really wrong. Perhaps just a bit myopic. In the macro, Penn State was Ohio State’s peer for 90% of the game, yet again, and lost its poise at the crucial juncture.
The problem isn’t more complicated than that for Franklin, who now has nine losses against these Buckeyes on his ledger. It’s not just a couple of bad breaks for him at this point. He’s consistently outcoached on the little things that determine games of this magnitude.
Were the playoff format not changing, you’d have to say he’s reached his ceiling, to the point that it would be worth discussing whether he should be replaced.
“What I’ll talk about is today,” Franklin said afterward. “We lost to a really good football team on the road. We had our chances. We battled. We weren’t able to capitalize. Big-picture things, I’ll be happy to talk about at some point.”
Granted, Penn State is not out of chances yet. No. 2 Michigan awaits Nov. 11 back in Happy Valley. It’s the Wolverines — not the Buckeyes — who are two-time defending BigTen champs.
If Penn State wins that game and wins out, it’ll have a playoff resume to rival anyone’s, despite this loss.
Of the two, though, Ohio State has always seemed like the more favorable matchup. Michigan also isn’t the proverbial brass ring that Ohio State has been. Penn State has won three of the past six meetings.
For those reasons, this one might be tougher to get over psychologically than it is practically. All of that belief, over all of those years that this program might one day stand up to this particular annual test and take on the mantle of the Big Ten’s best head to head is being left on this field.
New challenges and possibly greater triumphs await. But this particular chapter of Penn State’s history is closed in a decidedly dissatisfying way. The Lions won’t even face their border rival every year under the expanded Big Ten’s new division less scheduling format.
That can only be the best. It doesn’t seem Franklin’s program will ever have the juice to beat this team to get where it wants to go.
Time to find a different route.