In 2016, Penn State football pulled off an upset against Ohio State and ended up going all the way to the Big Ten championship game. The Nittany Lions won that title game against Wisconsin, and James Franklin looked poised to make his team a consistent College Football Playoff contender. While Franklin has had some great teams at Penn State, he hasn’t been able to get over the Ohio State/Michigan football hurdle. Many people thought that this could be the year for the Nittany Lions, but Penn State lost to the Buckeyes earlier in the year. They desperately needed to beat Michigan on Saturday.
The Wolverines came into Saturday’s contest without a head coach, but James Franklin still couldn’t get the job done. Michigan was dominant all day on defense, and the Penn State football offense couldn’t get anything going. Quarterback Drew Allar finished the game 10-22 for 70 yards and one touchdown. Franklin believes that the coaching staff has to do a better job of calling plays to help Allar.
“We’ve got to do a better job of calling a game to allow our quarterback to get into rhythm,” Franklin said after the game, according to an article from Basic Blues Nation. “That is critical. We’ve got to find easy completions for a quarterback to get into rhythm. That’s what everybody does. We’ve got to do a good job of that. And then on top of that, although there weren’t sacks, there were too many pressures and there were too many times where we were not creating separation. Very similar to the other game [Ohio State] we talked about.”
Franklin and Penn State were trying to stay out of difficult third down situations all day, but Michigan did a good job when they were in those spots.
“I thought early on it was to do everything we possibly could to stay on schedule and not be in third-and-long situations,” Franklin continued. “I thought we did that for the most part. We still weren’t as efficient on third down as obviously we need to be; that was the biggest issue.”
It’s hard to know where to go right now if you’re Penn State. The Nittany Lions will likely finish the season 10-2 and they will likely go to a prestigious bowl game, but this team is ready to take the next step, and they just can’t get it done.