Penn State has lost five of its last six games against Michigan State.
Of course games don’t happen in a vacuum. In 2010 the Spartans were the No. 10 ranked team in the country, in 2014 it was Penn State at the lowest point in its sanction era. In 2015 the Spartans were fifth in the nation and on their way to the College Football Playoffs. In 2017 it was a long rain delay and solid quarterback play. In 2018 it was a bumpy road for Penn State’s offense and a late win for Michigan State in mid October.
However you want to slice and dice the reasons for Penn State’s losses, there’s no denying that the Spartans have been one of the few thorns in James Franklin’s side, Penn State with just one victory in the last five meetings.
And here comes Michigan State yet again, off a bye week, the upset hopefuls on a potentially rainy Saturday afternoon.
‘I think they enjoy coming and playing in our atmosphere and we enjoy going and playing in theirs, quite frankly,’ Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said earlier in the week. ‘I think our guys got up for it, and we just try and take a positive approach them as I said earlier and we play well against them. Our confidence should be there.’
‘You have to make plays on the field, and you have to have a plan that works and all that kind of stuff, so it’s all comprehensive. I don’t know if I can answer that question other than we’ve won the last two, and I think we are 4-1 on the last five games. So need to build on that and try and be 5-1.’
In a sense, while both teams have the same broad goals, the pressure to perform is on Penn State this weekend. Michigan State sits in the middle of the Big Ten East standings and would need a fair amount of help to make it to the conference title game. A 4-1 record against Penn State also gives Dantonio and his program a significant edge in bragging rights. While those sorts of things won’t dictate the result of the game, the overall narrative will go largely unchanged: Michigan State isn’t afraid of Penn State’s gaudy offense and 3.5 year streak of success against everyone else.
For James Franklin in particular it’s difficult to ignore the larger storyline at play this weekend. A loss would once again derail a Nittany Lion season and only further an overarching collection of data-points that suggests Penn State and Franklin are far more well equipped to beat the bottom two thirds of the Big Ten than the biggest contenders in the east. That’s not to say the Nittany Lions haven’t been competitive in the vast majority of their marquee games, but the results are the results.
‘We talk about our record against Michigan and our ability to get a win last week and we have a similar record against Michigan State so we’ve got to find a way to ge a win on the road against these guys,’ Franklin said after practice on Wednesday. ‘I hope, I hope that our coaching does not change based on record. I know it does. I know there’s human nature that factors into it. I know as coaches we looked at this in the offseason and said, enough is enough, we better find a way to get this thing done.’
‘But they’re a good program and have been for a long time. [Dantonio is] a darn good coach…I think the thing that we have to do against this team is that we’ve got to make it difficult on their quarterback, their quarterback has had some good games against us (259 and 400 yards passing each the past two meetings) we’ve got to make him a little uncomfortable.’
It’s an interesting admission by Franklin, both that the process doesn’t change but the inevitability the optics are what they are. A win against Michigan State would give Penn State its first over both Michigan schools in nearly a decade. It would also begin to reverse about the only tide running against Franklin and his staff right now. A win would be victories over two of the three most prominent programs in the division. A trip to Columbus could very well decide the season, but it might be unfair to judge an entire year on how that game goes.
So Penn State turns to Saturday afternoon, with rain in the forecast, looking to prove that it is the team it says it is. And in the bigger picture, that the Nittany Lions can shake the monkey off its back.
