Photo for the Mirror by Chuck Meyers
James Franklin looks on in the final moments of the game.
UNIVERSITY PARK — With 12:25 remaining, and the Nittany Lions having managed a mere field goal while trailing 17-3, the Beaver Stadium crowd that James Franklin had asked to make itself a difference had seen enough.
They pierced the air with a resounding “Fire Franklin” chant.
He obviously heard the message, and he didn’t publicly attempt to refute it.
Penn State’s 30-24 double-overtime loss to No. 6 Oregon was the latest rerun of Franklin’s big-game failures — he’s now 4-21 against the Top 10 in his 12-year PSU tenure — and the common dominator is him.
He called the White Out environment “awesome,” which it was, and accepted the fans’ input.
“When we win, there’s nothing better,” he said in subdued remarks shortly after midnight. “When we lose, there’s nothing worse. I get the frustration that comes with a fan base that is invested and cares. I get it.”
Franklin has mastered finding different ways to lose in the highest-profile situations. There have been slow starts, brutal finishes and poor offensive decisions and execution.
Saturday night against a superior-coached and better prepared Ducks team, it was a combination of all the above.
Mainly, though, it was an unacceptable offensive showing in which the Lions couldn’t establish a run game and rolled out a pass game that was equally ineffective.
The Lions converted just six of 15 third-down opportunities, which contributed to lopsided time of possession (19:07-10:53 in the first half), which ultimately wore down State’s otherwise stout defense.
Penn State managed just 109 total yards in three quarters.
“We weren’t able to get anything going early in the game on offense, and then we got into obvious passing situations,” Franklin said. “Third-and-long, which was not a great situation for our quarterback … or for our offensive line.”
Drew Allar finally woke up in the fourth quarter and helped the Lions reel off 21 straight points, tying the game at 17 late in regulation and taking a 24-17 lead in overtime.
By then, however, the Nits’ defense — which didn’t sack slick Oregon quarterback Dante Moore once and allowed the Ducks to convert five of seven fourth-down opportunities — “ran out of gas a little bit at the end,” Franklin said.
Consequently, Oregon scored a 25-yard touchdown on the first play of the second OT, and Allar’s unforgivable interception on a first-down pass intended for tight end Luke Reynolds added another demerit to Franklin’s resume.
“I get that narrative, and it’s really not narrative, it’s the facts,” Franklin said. “I try to look at the entire picture and what we’ve been able to do here, but at the end of the day, we got to find a way to win those games. I totally get it, and I take ownership, and I take responsibility.”
Allar, who competed hard and made some tough runs but was erratic, fell to 0-6 against Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame.
“Obviously, you have to learn from this game,” Allar said. “The outcome sucks, but we’re looking for the positives and also the negatives to learn and correct those, so they don’t happen again.”
We’ll have to take his word for it since the Lions’ last three losses — Oregon, Notre Dame and Oregon again — have ended on Allar’s interceptions. And each one came on a pass that should never have been thrown.
Franklin and all his assistants to the assistants, along with their analysts and consultants, may want to digest that before the next big moment arrives.
The majority of the blame fell to the offense, and while coordinator Andy Kotelnicki was supposed to be an upgrade over Mike Yurcich, who was fired in 2023, it hasn’t worked out that way.
Yet no matter the faces over the years — the OCs and the quarterbacks — every button Franklin pushes against the best teams sets off a buzzer.
The players believe they’re the ones who should be held accountable.
“Any time we lose, I feel bad for coach Franklin,” defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton said. “I feel like I let him down.”
The fans beg to differ, and they made that quite clear Saturday night.
Rudel can be reached at [email protected].
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.altoonamirror.com ’
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