A Fork in the Road

Even absent much of the anticipated luster, Penn State’s trip out West to battle the Trojans offers a rare opportunity to flip the script on the program’s fortunes under James Franklin.

Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

The moment has arrived.

Among the many alluring qualities that draw us unceasingly back into sports fandom no matter how much or how often it inflicts nearly unbearable anguish, maybe the most satisfying is that sports offer us closure. A final score. An ultimate champion. No matter the length of the season or intensity of the build-up, in the end, there is always the denouement. A cold, uncaring universe offers little of the certainty our brains so desperately crave, but sports will always give us an answer, even if it is often the one we didn’t want. Wait long enough, and the moment – the answer – will always come.

For James Franklin and the Penn State football program, one such verdict is now merely hours away from declaration. No matter the outcome on a Sun-splashed afternoon in the Los Angeles Coliseum, a judgement on the Nittany Lions’ 2024 season, and perhaps a whole lot more, will be rendered. Many questions, some newly formed and others long-simmering, will finally get resolved when Penn State’s game at USC goes final.

Of immediate concern, of course, will be the condition of PSU’s playoff hopes. A loss once again puts the Lions on all-too-familiar shaky footing, increasing the stakes of a looming contest against Ohio State that they hold little hope of winning, vaporizing any margin of error against other opponents, and probably forcing the team to rely on the misfortune of others to finally qualify for even this new, expanded postseason. For the vaunted recruiting class of 2022, almost certainly the greatest of James Franklin’s tenure, failure at USC would signal the Sun setting on their chance to leave a legacy that stands the test of time. In the case of their head coach himself, another crushing disappointment in the spotlight would mean the prevailing wisdom that suggests he cannot win when it matters the most will move that much closer to a final verdict.

Unfortunately, USC’s upset loss at the hands of the Golden Gophers robbed this game of the hype and intrigue that felt all but assured heading into last weekend. After Minnesota punched in a late game-winning score on fourth down, the Trojans tumbled from both polls, now sitting atop the “Others Receiving Votes” category for both the AP and Coaches. What would have been a chance for James Franklin to notch his first road win over a top-10 opponent, and indeed only his third road victory over a team ranked anywhere in the top 25, became a non-descript meeting with an unranked underdog. Nevertheless, they are still the blue blood program of 11 national titles and eight Heisman Trophy winners, the best quarterback and roster the Lions have faced this season, and potentially the second best they will see all year. What’s more, from the perspective of anything that really matters in 2024, this game is the key that unlocks a future full of promise. Conquer this foe, and not only can the Nittany Lions establish the bona fides of a team capable of doing even bigger things, they can also look to a home date with Ohio State where, for the first time in a decade, all the pressure rests on the Buckeyes. For a Penn State team desperately needing to level up, USC is standing in the way, and that’s enough.

While a win over Ohio State or Michigan in either of the last two years would have vaulted the program to the rarified heights it has long dreamed of occupying, those were elite, playoff-caliber opponents who the sharps in Vegas rightly installed as favorites against the Nittany Lions. The odds were never in our favor. Not since November of 2019, when fourth-ranked Penn State traveled to Minnesota as close to the playoff as they’ve ever come and left just as far away as ever, has a reasonably winnable game carried as much significance as this weekend’s trip to face USC. The specter of that Minnesota game, along with one-point losses to the Buckeyes and embarrassing pratfalls against the likes of Michigan State, Iowa, and Illinois, will quietly haunt this team along every mile of journey to the West Coast (whether it be by bus or by fully fueled jet plane). What’s more, the fact remains that Penn State has never defeated USC in the Pacific Time Zone. Despite success here in Happy Valley, at the Meadowlands, and in State’s postseason home-away-from-home, the Fiesta Bowl, the Nittany Lions have fallen short of victory over Southern Cal in three Rose Bowls and two trips to the Coliseum. So if Penn State turns the page on its recent past by vanquishing the Trojans on Saturday, the team will be making program history in the process.

Incidentally, you may have seen the ballyhooed stat tossed around all week about Big Ten schools going 1-8 this season when traversing multiple time zones. As with many such discussions, context is everything, and as is often the case in modern media, those crucial details are conveniently omitted. Drill down into lowly Northwestern and QB-challenged Michigan getting nipped by feisty Washington, Oregon stealing Michigan State’s lunch money, or Penn State suplexing UCLA while half-asleep, and you find nary a result to trigger the upset meter. In fact, the only two games that saw mild upsets from the underdog both involved this week’s opponent, and it may be the Trojans just aren’t very good. If Penn State does not exit the weekend at 6-0, it won’t be because the players were jetlagged. It will simply mean that the Nittany Lions, not for the first time under James Franklin, came up small when the moment got big.

So what will it be?

Truth be told, I am expecting very little from Penn State this weekend. How could I do otherwise? No matter how I try, I cannot manage to imagine an outcome other than the disappointment with which I have become so depressingly familiar. Probably too often these days, we parrot the definition as insanity of repeating the same behaviors while expecting different results, so in that spirit, I’ll spare my mental health and prepare for the worst. Nevertheless, it only takes one.

When the Nittany Lions enter the L.A. Coliseum on Saturday, they will come to a fork in the road. The path they have followed as a team this season, and for nearly a decade (or more) as a program, will split off in two directions. Along one, well-worn byway awaits the excruciating emptiness of “almost.” Again, we’ve watched their predecessors take that route far too often. Can the 2024 Penn State football team find it within themselves to defy convention, outgrow their past, and choose the road less traveled?

We will know soon enough, and for that certainty, if nothing else, I am grateful. After weeks (or months… or years) of waiting, we will finally have our answer.

Three for the Road:

1. In contrast to the gloomy tone above, a more dispassionate analysis of this matchup favors the Nittany Lions. I think Penn State is the deeper, more talented, more explosive, and better coached team. The matchups of PSU’s rushing attack versus Southern Cal’s run defense, and State’s front four against the Trojans’ middling offensive line suggest a positive outcome for the good guys. Find whatever solace you like in that knowledge. I will believe it when, and if, I see it.

2. How great is college football? Across the sport, last weekend was supposed to be a relatively boring formality as powerhouses dispensed with unranked tomato cans. By day’s end, Penn State sleepwalking through a comfortable win over woeful UCLA looked a hell of a lot better than it did right after the game. Unpredictable upsets, the nation’s best player suiting up for the Boise State Broncos, the Service Academies partying like it’s 1949. I love the NFL, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the college game for variety, intrigue, and compelling stories.

3. Chasing Lydell & Franco: Here’s your weekly update on where Nick and Kaytron measure up versus the greatest tandem of backs in school history. With Singleton held out last week, Allen added 78 yards to the pair’s accumulated total for the season, which now stands at 775. The top two single-season efforts from a pair of backs (splitting the productivity at least 70/30) are Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell in 1971 with 2,251 rushing yards and Nick and Kaytron themselves in 2022 with 1,928. The duo requires 1,154 combined yards to surpass the total from their freshman campaign and 1,477 to establish a new all-time standard.