Embrace the Possible

More than a decade of nearly uninterrupted futility makes victory in Columbus feel out of reach, but Penn Staters should dare to imagine a bigger picture.

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This column aspires to frame a “travel narrative” around the journey of Penn State’s 2023 football season, a chronicle of the Nittany Lions’ path toward their destination parceled out over 12 – plus three?? – installments (we won’t count the Bye week’s digression about scheduling Pitt).

For the most ardent enthusiasts of college football, one of its most beautiful aspects is the way in which the seven-day cycles linking each game day to the next take on their own character. The previous week’s result, the upcoming opponent, and the many tempests in the internet teapot that suddenly bubble up (and disappear just as quickly) combine to imbue each successive week with a unique flavor. Already this year, we’ve had enough James Franklin press conference gems to fill an entire season, not to mention the student section service dog (what a good boy!).

We remember the outcomes, but often the events between kickoffs become just as much as part of the story. Taken together, they help us mark the passage of time in our lives.

As a result, there are instances when the enormity of events in the wider world spills over into our observance of the annual Autumn rituals; reality intrudes and leaves its imprint.

Despite the expansion of televised college football onto nearly every day of the week, Penn State waited over 20 years after originally planned to play on a Thursday night (against Purdue last year). Its first such game was scheduled at Virginia for September 13, 2001. Fans entering Beaver Stadium for the first game of what became a mythical Big Ten title run in 2005 were greeted by student volunteers collecting donations for Hurricane Katrina relief. Four years later, stars of State’s next conference champ – like cornerback Lydell Sargeant, who sealed that year’s Ohio State game with an interception in the end zone – campaigned to elect America’s first black President in between football Saturdays. Serious front-page headlines infiltrate the carefree sports page. This is one of those occasions where I’d be remiss to allow my weekly moment of reflection to pass without acknowledging the extraordinary circumstances of the moment.

The biggest game of Penn State’s season, and probably of James Franklin’s coaching tenure, will take place amid a backdrop of terrifying times. Not since at least those chaotic days after 9/11 has the possibility of global conflagration felt so real, and the heated rhetoric and increasingly aggressive posture of military powers around the world unnervingly recall history’s most chilling lessons about the precursors to war.

Once upon a time, I had an essay published in “Penn Statements,” an anthology of freshman composition from across the University. Nominally, the topic was Nintendo; more broadly, it was about the shared cultural experiences that linked a generation fortunate to grow up without the sort of overwhelming calamities that beset our grandparents or even our parents. It was not a particularly good piece of writing, and I’m actually kind of embarrassed by it today, but I’ve also found myself thinking back on that concept of blissful ignorance incubated in times of relative peace in the Western world. As human beings, we often struggle to imagine things we have not experienced ourselves. If we now teeter on the brink of making terrible, irreversible mistakes, it is perhaps because so few of our people, from our leaders on down, possess living memory of the horrors of war between great powers. We cannot envision consequences we have not seen first-hand. We are grappling with a failure of imagination.

Blessedly, it is in exactly these sorts of times, when clouds of fear and uncertainty gather overhead, when we can find comfort in the familiar. At its very best, sport (I beg you’ll forgive my pretentious use of the singular) offers respite from the tragedies of the human condition in favor of celebrating what unites us. Let us now escape to the solace of college football and its predictable cadence, even as we pray for the luxury of many more days when nothing seems more important than the outcome of a football game.

As human beings, we often struggle to imagine things we have not experienced ourselves.

For the many fans who are either too young or too recent to recall Penn State’s successful encounters with the Buckeyes, or too fatalistic to grant these hard-won victories their due, the task ahead seems nigh impossible. That magical evening of October 22, 2016, notwithstanding, recent memories of Penn State versus Ohio State on the gridiron conjure only anger, frustration, and despair. Whether by dispiriting blowout, narrow defeat, baffling officiating, or harrowing collapse, the Nittany Lions have managed only one win against the Buckeyes in their last eleven tries dating back to 2012, and the current six-game losing skid represents the longest in series history. We have watched Penn State lose every which way to this team, and James Franklin’s 1-8 record against OSU (especially when added to his 3-6 mark versus Michigan) inspires little confidence. The history against ranked competition is shaky, and the performance against top-10 opponents is worse. The miraculous upset of #2 Ohio State in 2016 feels more and more like exactly that – a welcome, but fluky glitch in the Matrix. So we struggle to envision what we have not witnessed. We are grappling with a failure of imagination.

On some level, everybody associated with Penn State football – from coaches, staff, and players on down to we rank-and-file fans – must overcome the psychological challenge of distinguishing “has not” from “cannot.” Just because past teams with different players in different situations produced similar results does not mean that this year’s group is destined for that same fate. For reinforcement, we need look no further than Michigan, whose fans care more about beating Ohio State than many people care about anything. Those poor saps were just recently mired in an eight-game losing streak to the Buckeyes, a stretch that saw them lose 15 of 16, and 17 of 19 dating back to 2001. Imagine their anguish! And yet one day, the profligate shortcomings of the past be damned, their players were better than Ohio State’s players, and today they are winners of two straight and on track to be favored for a third. As hard as it may be to conceive of before they happen, these sorts of outcomes feel impossible right up until the moment that they’re not.

Consider that Penn State’s roster, which seems to match up favorably with Ohio State’s, may just be a group of players who are better than their opponents and prepared to act upon it. Sure, you can point to OSU’s homefield advantage and cite the (admittedly kind of depressing) statistic that the Nittany Lions have won only twice at the Horseshoe since entering the Big Ten. You could also flip that around and focus on the particulars. Circumstances matter. Penn State’s first Big Ten win in Columbus in 2008 matched two top-10 teams of nearly equal talent, both boasting stout defenses and breaking in first-year starters at quarterback (OSU’s starter hailing from Pennsylvania and PSU’s from Ohio), so if past is prologue, our guys may be poised to once again defy conventional wisdom.

Make no mistake, the challenge awaiting Penn State inside the Horseshoe is indeed monumental. Since PSU began conference play in 1993, Ohio State has boasted one of the most successful programs in all of college football. The Buckeyes have dominated their Big Ten competition with remarkable consistency, and yet Penn State has had more success against them than any opponent except their hated nemesis Michigan. That PSU’s eight victories in 30 years ranks second in the conference during that span speaks to Ohio State’s incredible run of dominance, but it also reminds us that they are, indeed, mortal; the Lions have found chinks in that armor and drawn blood. Only in these last two years of Michigan’s consecutive conference championships have the Wolverines nosed ahead of the Nittany Lions in wins over the Buckeyes since Penn State joined the conference. In a way, even those two Michigan titles, which brought their tally of claimed B1G championships to seven since ’93, underscore the gap between Ohio State and everyone else. In the days before the conference title game, multiple teams could be credited with a piece of the championship, and from 1993 on, Ohio State has doubled the Wolverines up, winning 14 outright or shared Big Ten titles.

Of course, like so many things in life, it’s all about perspective. If you’re a college football fan in Madison, Happy Valley, East Lansing, or even Ann Arbor, a conference title still feels like a big deal. When you’ve won at least a share of the crown 14 times over the last 30 years, it probably just feels like December. Given the volume of NFL-caliber talent and the amount of regular season success enjoyed by the Buckeyes over the last three decades, I suppose an uncharitable reading of their fortunes is that it’s something of a disappointment to have captured “only” two national titles. Maybe one reason Ryan Day is so mad at Lou Holtz right now is that it must be exhausting to succeed nearly all the time, only to be dogged incessantly for those rare occasions when you don’t. On the other hand, James Franklin and his team’s faithful followers would trade a lot to be burdened with such “problems.” Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.

It is a fair reading of this season, and indeed James Franklin’s entire time at Penn State so far, that all roads have led to this single inflection point. If the dream that lured James, as perhaps the nation’s hottest young coaching prospect, to Happy Valley in 2014 is to be realized – not only of resurrecting the program from the ashes of scandal, but then transforming it into a modern powerhouse worthy of its pedigree – then the time has arrived to make that leap. PSU’s schedule seems tailor-made to bringing along its young star signal-caller, and the roster, especially on defense, is stocked with generational veteran superstars who will be playing on Sundays next season, many of them as very high draft picks. The progress under Franklin has been remarkable in many ways, and there are plenty of signs it is set to continue. But tomorrow is promised to no one. The Nittany Lions cannot afford to let this opportunity slip away.

As my Obligatory Pregame Show co-host Kevin Horne has correctly observed, the advent of next season’s expanded playoff field negates the do-or-die nature of each Fall Saturday that has characterized college football for decades. Just as January’s Rose Bowl marked the Granddaddy’s final pairing of the Big Ten and PAC-12 champions, this installment of Penn State-Ohio State will be the last that carries the apocalyptic connotations of all-or-nothing. For that reason alone, now is the time, and there is no tomorrow.

We believe that these Nittany Lions are different. We believe they have that special something that leads to hanging banners. To get where we want them to go, they will have to face mighty Michigan, and beyond, even stiffer tests would await in the playoffs. But there is something more with Ohio State. This team is not simply an obstacle on the path to the objective.

Ohio State has been the measuring stick program within the conference and, without fail, a key player in every campaign of consequence for the Nittany Lions since the University abandoned its long-held football independence. Of the eight seasons in which Penn State has gotten the better of the Buckeyes, four have resulted in conference titles (only two of those B1G champions defeated Michigan – 1994 and 2008 – the only two times State has beaten both in the same year). What is at stake on Saturday is, in all likelihood, the fate of a season, and what’s more, a referendum on the state of the program and its capacity to transcend, as Coach Franklin might put it, “mere greatness.” What’s on the line is our right to challenge for a place among the elite. A tall order, an exciting opportunity. And no matter what Penn States achieves in Columbus this year, it still won’t match the astonishing feat managed by Rip Engle’s 1964 Nittany Lions.

No less an authority than that wisest of college football sages The New York Times stated that “nothing” in a season defined by shocking upsets was “more stupefying than the frightful 27‐0 licking Ohio State took from Penn State.”

The Grey Lady went on to report that the “Buckey [sic] powerhouse, which had ranked second in the nation and had allowed only 34 points in defeating its six previous opponents, was utterly helpless against a foe that had been beaten four times.”

A four-loss Penn State squad that had been left for dead traveled to Ohio and blanked the number-two team in the country, touching off a raucous celebration on campus that culminated with a Volkswagen Beetle being forcibly migrated from College Ave. to the duck pond in front of University House, which at that time served as the president’s residence.

A fun sidenote: The student body president at the time was future trustee Ben Novak, a true Penn State iconoclast whose many contributions to enriching life in the Nittany Valley include founding the Mount Nittany Conservancy and penning America’s first local newspaper column devoted to beer for the Centre Daily Times. Seeing an increasingly destructive post-game mob rampaging through the Downtown, he took it upon himself to focus and channel their spontaneous energies, later telling The Daily Collegian, “As in the French Revolution, you have to find out where the crowd is and lead it.” Wise words to live by should a post-victory celebration start getting out of hand this weekend.

So it can be done. It has been done. Take comfort in that as the nervous tension mounts and doubt creeps in.

If this group of Nittany Lions is to be something more than Penn State has been in a very long time, something special, then it must go through Ohio State. How could it be any other way? They can prove their mettle, cast off the shackles of past failures, and free themselves up to dream bigger dreams than any one game’s result can deliver.

The opportunity is there for the taking. Embrace the moment, and imagine what is possible.

Three for the Road:

1. There’s interesting “survive and advance” structure of escalating challenge built into this year’s schedule for Penn State, like a video game where each level gets progressively more difficult. The rewards for defeating this weekend’s stage boss will be escalating stakes and even stouter foes. You beat #3? Great. Make sure you handle your business and keep your focus, because #2 lies in wait.

2. James Franklin loves systems and routine and process. He enjoys repeating the same mantras again and again, sticking to what he believes in and striving to perfect it. I love this approach, by the way. One of those favorite oft-recited phrases is “complementary football,” every aspect of the team working together in concert. This will need to be in full effect between Penn State’s fearsome defensive line and exceptionally talented secondary. The pressure must force Kyle McCord to make bad decisions, the coverage must compel him to hold onto the ball. Pull this off consistently, and they’ll be well on their way to making us all very happy come mid-afternoon.

3. I am going to cheat just a tad here and steal from my good friend Steve Garguilo, co-host (with the terrific Tim Buckley) of the Let’s Talk Penn State podcast. Steve made the tremendous point this week that, should the Nittany Lions win the day in Columbus this year, we may look back at December 2021 as the catalyst. As the architect of Oklahoma State’s impressive defensive turnaround, Jim Knowles was among the most in-demand coordinator candidates in America when Ohio State poached him on December 7, 2021. On December 11, Penn State announced the hiring of Manny Diaz. If Diaz was indeed the superior hire, it needs to shine through in this game.