There are a lot of things to take into consideration when unpacking Penn State’s 0-3 start and 35-19 defeat to Maryland on Saturday night.
But it seems prudent to get to the point off the bat: ‘We’ve got to be focused on getting in the win column, nothing else,’ junior receiver Jahan Dotson said after the game. ‘Right now, to be completely honest, we’re not a good football team right now.’
The why is a more complex and a slightly ambiguous thing to reason out. Quarterback Sean Clifford has not looked like a player entering his second year as a starter. His deep throws continue to feel hopeful rather than filled with intention, the rest of his passes fluctuate between accurate and surprisingly misjudged, the occurrence of each happening at a rate slightly higher than one might prefer.
Around him, his receivers aren’t always open. His offensive line has not lived up to its potential and Clifford finds himself under duress far more often than he ought to be.
There are the injuries and/or departures. The absence of linebacker Micah Parsons and the health of both Journey Brown and Noah Cain are seismic losses totaled together. Their true impact is difficult to quantify given Penn State’s vast issues, but one would be remiss to leave them out of the ongoing equation.
And then there’s the defense.
Brent Pry’s unit has its moments — managing to hold Ohio State, Indiana and Maryland within reach despite their own miscues that appear early in games, but those chunk plays and early scores subsequently are leaving Penn State’s offense behind the eight-ball as it struggles to find its own identity.
As a sum total of parts Penn State is not functionally a team lacking talent at any given position, but there is a disjointed sense of connection and continuity between them. The root cause of that something difficult to parse from the other side of the locker room doors.
“It’s very apparent what kind of football team we are,” Clifford said after the game. “We’re an 0-3, poor performing football team right now, and we need to change that.”
Losing happens and getting upset happens but the Nittany Lions look lost, stumbling across enough success to stay competitive by virtue of being talented while being simultaneously incoherent in collecting that talent and generating consistent play.
All of this leads back to James Franklin eventually because the buck ultimately stops there, but even that is limiting. It seems unlikely Franklin — who has guided Penn State to becoming one of the most consistent programs in the nation the past half decade — has somehow lost that touch overnight. The issue for Franklin now is that the problem appears so broad it’s difficult to know which part to tackle first.
It’s not positional; it’s systemic. It’s not one stat; it’s a collection of trends.
Some of that is leadership, some of that personnel, some of it is bad luck, some of it is just not being good. Winning is a seven-days-a-week effort that comes to fruition on one of those days.
Only those inside the Lasch Building know the true root of this season’s 0-3 start, or nearly 1-2 if we want to argue the accuracy of that overtime review in Bloomington. Trying to parse out a substantive and linear solution to Penn State’s issues is to make the mistake of assuming we’re right about what they are in the first place, or that we’re equipped with the knowledge of how to fix them.
If we were, it’s unlikely I would be writing, nor likely you would be reading.
“We gotta do every little thing right,” Clifford said. “We’re not doing that, it’s all across the board. It starts with me, but we gotta clean it up. We can’t lose this many games, we can’t start the way we did — there’s just so many things we need to clean up.’
Pulled out even farther, from 40,000 feet the problem leaking in from the margins appears to be slightly larger than the mechanics of Sean Clifford’s arm or the propensity of Lamont Wade to find himself chasing the ball.
In the long view, Penn State faces a 2021 recruiting class that Franklin openly admits was not up to its standards. It faces holding together a top five 2022 recruiting class eons from signing on the dotted line. It faces an uncertain future for its own players and an existential uncertainty that its staff as currently constructed will actually turn the corner in the long run.
At quarterback Clifford will likely improve as the year goes along, but the Nittany Lions have no obvious longterm solution waiting in the wings, be it on the roster or in the pipeline and regardless as to how Clifford does or does not play, no immediate and pragmatic option to replace him if the need were to arise.
Even broader, a simple wonder if the Nittany Lions will reach the heights of 2016 and 2017 or if that perfect storm of coaching, talent and a tad bit of luck was Franklin’s best shot. More importantly, how long the road ahead might be to return there.
Penn State has now played 29 games since the conclusion of the 2017 season. Prior to the 2016 campaign the Nittany Lions had played 26 games under James Franklin’s watch. While it’s unfair to discount Penn State’s 11-2 year in 2019, the Nittany Lions’ failures against Minnesota and Ohio State left many with a bad taste in their mouth against a larger context of similar shortcomings.
This leaves the Nittany Lions and Franklin in unhappy and uncharted waters, with an uncertainty if the boat is taking on water or simply riding through rough seas.
And now it’s up to Franklin to chart a course, and to do it fast.
