In a college football era where ‘Paper Beats Rock,’ It’s imperative James Franklin’s long, uphill climb finally summits this season

Sisyphus was a king in ancient Greece who ruled with an iron fist. The gods, angry at him for killing visitors to his land, punished him by forcing him to push a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down each time it approached the summit, for eternity.

James Franklin has now ruled the kingdom of Penn State football for more than a decade, and each time the Nittany Lions appear as though they’re about to reach the summit of college football’s elite, they backslide. The 52-year-old coach has proven quite adept at pushing the proverbial boulder most of the way up the hill, as evidenced by both the four top-10 finishes in the past eight years and the team’s current preseason ranking of No. 8. That he hasn’t gotten it the whole way up, and down the other side, is an increasing sore spot for his kingdom, and each year that passes causes a few more observers to wonder how close to Sisyphus’ plight Franklin truly is.

The coming 2024 season, however, threatens to break the cycle, one way or the other. There is a chance, a not-that-crazy chance, that a few things that haven’t clicked for Penn State during the last few years will click, and a spot in the expanded playoff is there for the taking. The Nittany Lions have one of the nation’s most talented running back rooms, a quarterback who at least has the potential to be more dynamic than he showed in a productive but frustrating first year as a starter, and an offensive coordinator who has a proven proclivity for getting dudes into open spaces with the football. The defense is once again deep and athletic, dotted with potential All-Americans and led by a savvy veteran defensive coordinator who has, like that aforementioned offensive coordinator, done some impressive stuff with a lot less talent than he’ll have at his disposal this fall.

At the same time, the structures and strengths that have enabled Franklin to push the boulder so far up the hill are showing cracks, if not flashing red sirens. Penn State has so far whiffed on all but four of the top 10 in-state recruits in the Class of 2025, and has watched four prospects in that class de-commit since March and three since June. Several players have been quite obviously lured away by, ahem, greener pastures, as programs with bluer chips than Penn State’s as well as those who haven’t been anywhere near as competitive have stepped up with NIL resources that the Nittany Lions are either unable or unwilling to match. For years now, Franklin has sounded the alarm that Penn State was falling behind its peers or would-be peers in this area (among others), but the past few months have been the first period where the effects have been acutely felt. It should be noted that Penn State is off to a solid start in the Class of 2026 cycle, but it has had only one top-10 class since 2019.

Then there is the stadium, which for so long has been both the source of one of the program’s greatest strengths—100,000-plus fans who contribute both a raucous home-field advantage and several million dollars in ticket revenue—and one of the most glaring examples of systematic lack of upkeep. A nine-figure renovation project is underway but it begs a few questions: Is the ROI going to be enough? Will the cutting of a couple thousand seats noticeably lessen that home-field advantage? Will the fans tolerate the transition years and the inevitable rise in ticket prices?

The answers to each of those questions, of course, is tied to what Penn State’s winning percentage will be over the next few seasons. A few more double-digit victory campaigns will likely lead to a couple of playoff berths and possibly even a home playoff game or two. That, presumably, would help Franklin recoup some of the support he might have lost over the last couple of years, even if the Nittany Lions don’t play for or even truly contend for a national title. But the Big Ten is a different conference now, having added West Coast teams with traditions and resources that match those of the league’s best returning programs. There will be more opportunities for the so-called signature wins that have mostly eluded the Lions during Franklin’s tenure but, in turn, more opportunities for 10- and 11-win seasons to become eight- and nine-win seasons.

This is why it’s hard to see what has become the status quo — Penn State winning a bunch of games but losing to the opponents who matter — continuing any further. The Nittany Lions are either going to have to start beating teams they aren’t supposed to beat with some regularity or they will be bumped from their top-10ish status into the shadow realm of teams who are barely résumé-boosters for the playoff contenders. If it’s the former, perhaps they can overcome some of the recruiting hiccups they’ve suffered recently even without the bags that some of their rivals are throwing around. If it’s the latter, then those resource challenges will loom even larger, and the completed stadium might be emptier even with a reduced capacity.

Franklin perhaps hasn’t gotten enough credit for getting the boulder this far up the hill, when you consider both the disconnect between the size and fervor of Penn State’s alumni base and the size of its war chest, and the sanctions hole he had to dig the program out of before he could even start up the hill. College football is changing, though, and that hill is getting steeper even as Franklin continues to push. A few key breaks, a few big plays, and it’s not hard at all to envision the Nittany Lions reaching the top this fall. If they don’t, though, it’s just as easy to see the boulder picking up steam in the other direction, and the potential journey back from that sort of fall might just make Sisyphus himself wince.