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James Franklin took 2 years to get his Penn State program off the ground after he came over from Vanderbilt. The program was still dealing with the ramifications of the Sandusky stain when Franklin arrived, so time wasn’t an issue. In 2014 and 2015, the Nittany Lions posted 7-6 records with 1 bowl victory, 1 bowl defeat, and a 6-10 record in conference play. Franklin lost 6 of 8 Big Ten games that first season. He won 4 the next year and Penn State has been on the upswing ever since.
Since the start of the 2016 season, Franklin has a top-10 winning percentage. Penn State has a 45-9 record at home. It has a 69-11 record in games it is favored. Franklin has posted 5 finishes in the AP Top 15 and he’s had Penn State among the top 12 in the final CFP rankings 6 times in 8 seasons.
Penn State had a random blip during COVID and the following year, but it has won 10 games in consecutive years since. Why would Penn State be anything but ecstatic about the state of its program?
Since 2016, the Nittany Lions are also 5-16 in games they entered as an underdog. And they’re 13-20 against ranked opponents.
Ohio State, by contrast, is 30-10 against ranked foes. Penn State, by the way, has lost 7 straight to the Buckeyes.
That seems a little bit of a problem.
Franklin signed the sixth-ranked class in the country in 2018, headlined by Micah Parsons. He signed the eighth-ranked class in 2022, headlined by Drew Allar. Those are the only top-10 classes to come through Happy Valley.
They have not played for a Big Ten title since beating Wisconsin in 2016.
That final step is a big one for programs. And Penn State hasn’t taken it yet.
But the Nittany Lions are among the favorites to make it to the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff in 2024. ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) gives PSU a 59.1% chance to earn 1 of the 12 spots in the field. The Worldwide Leader’s book, ESPN Bet, has Penn State priced at -135 to make the CFP (57.5% implied probability).
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Penn State won’t face Oregon in 2024. It won’t play Michigan. Road conference games are against USC, Wisconsin, Purdue, and Minnesota. Ohio State comes to Beaver Stadium. Penn State can get into the CFP with 2 losses. It might take something unforeseen for this team to lose more than 2 games.
For Franklin, the question isn’t whether he can get to the CFP. It’s whether he can win it. That’s what Penn State should care about. That’s what hasn’t been answered yet.
So, are these Nittany Lions a contender to win the whole thing?
FPI gives 11 teams at least a 2% chance to win the national championship. Penn State is 1 of them. FPI gives 7 teams at least a 4.8% chance. Penn State is 1 of them.
The Nittany Lions are 37th in the country in returning production, according to Bill Connelly. They bring back 67% of the offensive production and 68% of the defensive production. (Transfers are included in Connelly’s calculations.) So there’s no worry there. And their point differential had them among the biggest underperformers in the country last year.
Connelly’s SP+ model has the defense ranked fourth in its preseason projections. Led by Abdul Carter on the edge, Kobe King at linebacker, and Kevin Winston Jr. at safety, Penn State is brimming with defensive potential.
New defensive coordinator Tom Allen has a high standard to uphold replacing Manny Diaz. Last year, PSU ranked second nationally in defensive efficiency, giving up just 4.2 yards per play. The defense led the nation in sacks (49) and first downs allowed (13.9 per game). It was second in tackles for loss (111). Thanks to 24 takeaways in 13 games, Penn State was also second in the country in turnover margin.
It feels safe to trust the defense in Allen’s hands.
Whether you buy Penn State as a legitimate title contender depends on whether you believe in Allar or not.
A 5-star prospect from Medina, Ohio, Allar picked the Nittany Lions in the 2022 cycle and became the third-highest-rated quarterback prospect to sign with Penn State in the era of internet rankings.
He sat behind Sean Clifford as a first-year freshman, getting brief opportunities to throw (35-for-60, 344 yards, 4 scores) and run (18 carries, 52 yards, 1 score) across 10 appearances. Last season, he officially took the reins from Clifford and started all 13 games.
He completed 59.9% of his passes — defenders will round up to 60, detractors will say it was below 60, narratives and whatnot… — for 2,631 yards and 25 touchdowns with only 2 interceptions. He threw for 325 yards and 3 scores in his first career start, leading Penn State to a 38-15 thrashing of West Virginia. He would go on to throw 251 of his 389 passes before being intercepted for the first time — the best start by a Big Ten quarterback this century. And with only 2 picks on the year (in different games), he joined Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker as the only FBS quarterbacks ever to throw at least 25 touchdown passes and less than 3 interceptions in a season.
Allar posted the fourth-best QBR among Big Ten quarterbacks (72.7) and registered the fourth-highest EPA among Big Ten quarterbacks (45.7).
It was, for all intents and purposes, a fine start to what could be a decorated career for the former blue-chipper.
There were big highs and there were low lows. You’d expect as much from a first-year starter who was as green as Allar was. He had the huge game against West Virginia to open. He completed 25 of 37 passes for 4 scores against Iowa in a shutout. He was brilliant against Maryland on the road. He averaged 11.2 yards per attempt with 2 scores in a 42-0 demo of Michigan State. But he also completed 43.5% of his passes for just 70 total yards (3 per pass) in a 9-point loss to Michigan, and he completed 42.9% of his passes for 4.5 yards per throw in an 8-point loss to Ohio State.
“We’ve got to do a better job of calling a game to allow our quarterback to get into rhythm,” Franklin said after the Michigan defeat. “That is critical. We’ve got to find easy completions for a quarterback to get into rhythm.That’s what everybody does. We’ve got to do a good job of that. And then on top of that, although there weren’t sacks, there were too many pressures and there were too many times where we were not creating separation.”
The guy who called that Michigan game is no longer employed by Penn State. Instead, the offensive coordinator title now belongs to Andy Kotelnicki, widely regarded as one of the brightest offensive minds in today’s game.
During his 3-year stewardship, the pass game for the Kansas Jayhawks ranked 10th nationally in explosive pass play percentage (21.0% from 2021-23) and the offense was equally effective on third down and in the red zone.
The hope is a Kotelnicki-Allar partnership will get Penn State over its final hurdle. The ground game has a punishing 1-2 punch. The defense is stout. Can a consistent shot game develop?
Only 9.2% of Allar’s attempted passes last season were beyond 20 yards. Per Pro Football Focus’ tracking data, he completed 11 of 36 for 6 touchdowns and 1 interception. The leading quarterback for Kansas last fall had 51.1% of Allar’s overall pass attempts and 136% of his shot attempts.
Kotelnicki has the offensive principles to open up Penn State’s offense. Allar has the arm talent to bomb away downfield. Can this theoretical marriage work as well in practice as it does on paper? I keep asking these questions because we don’t know the answers.
Allar had his moments last year where he flashed that next-level potential. But he wasn’t really a difference-making quarterback when he needed to be. Some of that is on the staff for, as Franklin put it bluntly, not putting him in the best positions to be successful. Some of that was on Allar for playing too risk-averse.
The Maryland/Michigan sequence springs to mind. He seemingly had a “lightbulb” game against the Terps when he read the field, made smart throws, and shredded a defense with efficiency. A week later, he missed open receivers downfield for checkdowns that produced only groans from the crowd.
Both sides have to be better, but if they are, Penn State actually becomes dangerous in the games that matter.
Everything else is in place.
But this sounds a lot like what we’ve been saying of Penn State for years. Kotelnicki is Franklin’s sixth offensive coordinator in a decade on the job. Several of Kotelnicki’s predecessors were also wildly popular when they were hired. It feels like a lot on the shoulders of a second-year starting quarterback. We need to see it before we buy it.
Verdict: Pretender… for now
Best value for a title bet on Penn State: +2500 (via Caesars)
Additional entries in the “Contender or Pretender” series:
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
