Penn State Football: Nittany Lions Set For Season’s Final Opportunity

BRONX, N.Y. –Out there in the internet world there is a message board thread about Christian Hackenberg’s future at Penn State. 

It’s not a transfer rumor, simply an opinion. It says that if Hackenberg plays poorly against Boston College he should redshirt next year. The reasoning is simply a fan’s opinion on how to manage Hackenberg’s career. 

There are threads that ask questions about James Franklin and his staff. A 6-6 season is seen as starting things off on the wrong foot for many fans, no matter how the Nittany Lions have gotten to this point. There are threads that call for the firing of nearly everyone not named Bob Shoop. It’s a wild west of opinion in a world where the platform to post them is free.

So as Penn State enters today’s contest against Boston College — a seemingly consequence-free bowl game, it is a key opportunity for the program under Franklin. Boston College is not a bad team by any stretch. A loss would be far from an upset.

And a win, that would send Penn State out into the postseason on a positive. Playing a special game inside a special stadium could erase a lot of the past several months. It would give the Nittany Lions a winning record in each of the years under NCAA sanctions. It would give the team something to build on.

And it would give fans a reason to back away from a ledge they probably shouldn’t have been so close to in the first place.

“All the members of the teams will get bowl rings, but there’s something special about being able to put on that ring, ‘Bowl Champions.’ They’re going to look down and see that ring whether it’s on their finger or in a display case for the rest of their life,” Franklin said on Friday. “You want to end on a real positive note. 

“For us, there’s probably a little bit more significance in terms of sending these seniors out that have been through so much in their careers and sending them out on a real positive note and laying the foundation for the expectation moving forward. I’m really, really proud of our guys and thankful for the opportunity to be here.”

Franklin deflects a lot of the attention he gets as a prominent figure in State College and at Penn State, but as a consumer of all media and conversation related to Penn State, it’s impossible for him to avoid the chatter and the criticism. It’s a continuing process to win over fans not only with what Franklin is trying to achieve, but to make them believe that what he’s trying to do will work.

How is that process going so far?

“I think well,” Franklin said. “It’s different though. Penn State is a place where we had the same coach for 100 years, and we have tremendous respect for our history and our past. But, I can’t be anybody but James Franklin, and I think I’m probably very different, in a lot of ways, than the last two coaches that sat in this role.

“I hope, either, we already have shown our respect and our pride of being here and how we’re going to do the job,” Franklin said. “If it hasn’t happened already than I hope it’s happening over time, that we’re building and earning everybody’s trust and respect because this is a very, very important position in Penn State and our community. I know how much it means to everybody, but you have a coach, and a coaching staff here, that understands that.”

The question will always be how Bill O’Brien would have been received had he coached at Penn State this season. If his two successful campaigns would have bought him enough goodwill for the inevitable struggles to be forgotten. Perhaps Franklin has simply fallen prey to a first impression in a year where things were doomed from the outset.

But as Franklin said on Friday just over 24 hours before maybe one of the biggest games of his coaching career, he can’t be anyone other than James Franklin. The “what if” doesn’t matter, it doesn’t do anything but torment the mind with unanswerable questions.

So as Penn State takes the field under the lights on Saturday, the Nittany Lions will try and stick the dismount on what has been a bumpy ride. Hackenberg: his ability to overcome a struggling offense. Franklin: his ability to move the program forward through tough times.

The bowl game may not mean much to the national picture, but for Penn State, no matter how you slice it, it’s not just another game.

It’s a chance to take a step forward. Because at the end of the day, Penn State football is playing in a bowl game a few short years after the NCAA handed down some of the harshest sanctions in college football history.

And that’s a moment worth capitalizing on.