Sunday Column: Is This Year THE Year? Franklin’s Tenth Group of Lions Looks Loaded for Bear (or Wolverines)

Year 10 of the James Franklin Era at Penn State begins in earnest in slightly under four weeks, and the August leading up to the season opener includes a quality those first nine Augusts were, to various extents, lacking: Optimism.

Think about it for a second. When was the last time Penn State entered a season with this much collective excitement/expectations from fans, media, and, if you squint a little bit, from the team itself?

During Franklin’s first two seasons, 2014 and 2015, the Nittany Lions were most greatly feeling the effects of the Sandusky sanctions. Forget expectations; the hope in those years was that Penn State wouldn’t fall on its face. The 2016 season that wound up as the coming out party for Saquon Barkley and ended in a legendary Rose Bowl shootout, if you remember, started as a summer in which people were willing to give first-year starting QB Trace McSorley and the new OC from Fordham some room to grow, and ugly early losses to Pitt and Michigan did not exactly foretell the fireworks to come.

The 2017 campaign was probably the closest Penn State came to having legit preseason expectations under Franklin, who was coming off a Big Ten Coach of the Year Award and had signed a six-year contract extension that August. McSorley and Barkley were back to lead Joe Moorhead’s offense and a veteran if not star-studded defense returned mostly intact. The Nittany Lions started the year ranked sixth and spent the first half of the season in the top 5 before brutal, narrow losses at Ohio State and Michigan State knocked them out of the national and Big Ten championship races.

The following season, Barkley and Moorhead were gone, and with them much of the magic that the previous seasons had produced, and McSorley, Miles Sanders and a healthy batch of starters had departed by the start of 2019. The pandemic made 2020 a season to forget even before the stunning loss at Indiana and 0-5 start, and not much was expected of a 2021 team that had, A) lost those five games the year before and B) was on its third offensive coordinator in three season. Dampening the optimism coming into 2022 was the return of good-but-rarely-great quarterback Sean Clifford and a still-rebuilding offensive line that, like the quarterback, probably took more flak than was deserved but had also earned much of that flak to begin with.

That brings us to this point. ESPN has Penn State 10^th in its preseason Football Power Index poll, while NCAA.com ranks the Nittany Lions fifth (but behind No. 2 Michigan and No. 3 Ohio State) in the nation. CBS Sports has Penn State seventh, while 247Sports, Athlon Sports and College Football News all slot the Lions in at eighth. Big Ten Network analyst Gerry DiNardo said recently that the Nittany Lions were the most complete team in the Big Ten.

Franklin has publicly praised the team’s overall depth, which is as healthy as it’s been since his arrival, particularly up front. But while that depth should help bolster the team’s floor and its ceiling, it’s the would-be stars on both starting units that are the dry wood for the optimism bonfire that’s been ripping through the fan base this summer.

On offense, that’s sophomore quarterback Drew Allar, who showed just enough pocket presence, footwork and arm talent in various spot duty assignments last season to leave fans salivating about what he might do as the full-time guy. It’s sophomore running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, who played like seniors as true freshmen in 2022 and will have a better offensive line, led by possible 2024 NFL Draft No. 1 pick Olu Fashanu, blocking for them.

On defense, it’s cornerback Kalen King, linebacker Abdul Carter and defensive end Chop Robinson, the prime playmakers at their respective levels of the unit, plus those including linebacker Curtis Jacobs, defensive ends Adisa Isaac and Dani Dennis-Sutton, and safety Jaylen Reed, who seem poised to make the jump from solid to star this fall.

Having talent is one thing, and the Nittany Lions have been gradually building it these last few years through recruiting and the transfer portal. Developing that talent and putting it into position to succeed is another, and it seems that this team has much of its talent primed for success. The third piece of that, though, is the confidence that comes from players and coaches being on the same page, and this will be the first season since 2019 that Penn State will have both its offensive and defensive coordinators back from the previous season.

There are question marks, of course, as there are with any team in any season. Wide receiver. Defensive tackle. Safety depth. Punter and placekicker. But the 2023 team, at least in August, seems to be defined by the lack of Achilles heels of years past. No major staff disruptions. No major question marks along the offensive line. No irreplaceable playmakers needing to be replaced. Yes, Penn State is a little green in some areas, particularly at the most important position. Yes, Ohio State and Michigan should still be formidable. And yes, the depth looks impressive in August, but will it still be there in late October?

But as the Big Ten and the rest of college football prepare for future change, and NIL continues to silently shape the current landscape, Penn State is as well-positioned for a monster season as it has been since Franklin came to State College. That might be an optimistic take—and one that could look very silly in a couple of months’ time—but, for the first time in a long time, much of that optimism is well-founded.