Penn State is a 10-point underdog at Michigan on Saturday.
Here’s the irony of that double-digit spread:
Since Penn State’s last visit to The Big House, where it lost 49-10 on Sept. 24, 2016, PSU and Oklahoma are the only major college football teams to have NOT lost a game by double-digits.
That includes Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State and Wisconsin, as well as every other 127 FBS programs not named Nittany Lions or Oklahoma Sooners.
Maybe it’s a new metric to determine a quality coach: Even when his team loses, it’s still in the game. He may lose the game, but he never loses his players.
Here’s a potential corollary: In every single one of Penn State’s 31 games in the 765 days since that defeat in Ann Arbor, the Nittany Lions have had the lead for at least a portion of the fourth quarter.
Every. Single. Game.
It may be the most stunningly impressive stat of The James Franklin Era, despite some fourth-quarter missteps over the past two seasons and a multitude of special team gaffes in 2018.
That 31-game stretch has produced a 26-5 record and a robust .838 winning percentage. And those 31 contests represent nearly half of James Franklin’s entire 61-game tenure at Penn State (he’s now 42-19, .688).
It’s a painstaking and sometimes painful consistency of which Franklin takes great pride.
“It’s intentional,” Franklin said last week of that sometimes-monotonous, occasionally boring, but always 1-0 approach. “I’m very aware of my demeanor that I try to bring to the office every single day and what I try to bring to the practice field every single day, and the meeting rooms and things like that.”
His players have bought into it.
A couple of weeks ago, Nittany Lion linebacker Cam Brown admitted that ‘it gets boring sometimes, but it’s consistent. That means the world to him — to play consistent. That’s what we try to do.”
Offensive tackle Ryan Bates noted after Penn State’s win over Iowa on Saturday:“Whether it’s after a loss or a win, we enter a game with a positive mindset. I’m sure that will be the case with Michigan.”
IT NEVER BLOWS
Every week in the press box, be it home or away, veteran beat reporter Neil Rudel of the Altoona Mirror reminds me: “These guys are always close. They never get blown out. No matter what.”
If there is blowing out to be done, it’s the Nittany Lions doing it.
In that 31-game stretch since 2016, they’ve won 15 games by 24 or more points, 10 games by more than 30 points and five games by 45 or more (45, 52, 53, 56 and 63, to be exact).
Conversely, the other side of the keep-it-close coin is if there are fourth-quarter leads to be blown, the Nittany Lions can do that, too.
In one-score games since that Big House-cleaning in 2016, the Nittany Lions are 8-5 in contests decided by seven points or less, beginning the very next game after that debacle, when they beat Minnesota — “Hey, look, Irv, it’s a pass” — in overtime, 29-26.
The fourth-quarter fails hit their apex earlier this season in Beaver Stadium, when Penn State turned a 26-14 lead against Ohio State into a 27-26 loss and 14-7 and 17-14 leads against Michigan State into a 21-17 loss.
But, over the past two weeks, given the opportunity to succumb to fourth-quarter pressures — in extreme wind at Indiana and in wet and Halloween-weekend-scary (read: a sidelined Trace McSorley) conditions vs. Iowa — Penn State has found a way to win. On Saturday, it was thanks to a great Scott.
The losses, though, are legend. Not in a good way.
In fact, you know the Nittany close-but-no-cigar litany: Penn State’s five losses in that time have come by a combined 12 points — 1 point twice vs. Ohio State, 3 points in both the Rose Bowl and a thorny storm delay in East Lansing, and a 4-point fail vs. Sparty’s Felton Davis.
Still, nary a blowout. Or thereabouts.
THE LIST OF LOSSES
Hey, it happens, even to the best of them. Since Sept. 24, 2016:
Alabama lost by a dozen at Auburn in an SEC regular-season game in 2017. Clemson lost by 18 points to Alabama in last year’s College Football Playoffs.
Two weeks ago, Georgia lost by 20 to LSU, and in 2017 lost by 23 to Auburn, not to mention their 31-point loss to Ole Miss in 2016.
Wisconsin was almost double-digitless — with its four losses in 2016-17 by a TD or less. Even their loss to Indiana in early 2018 was by a field goal. Then came a 25-point defeat at the hands of Jim Harbaugh, followed by their 14-point loss to Northwestern last Saturday.
Notre Dame? Nah. In 2016-17, they lost by 33 to Miami (Fla.), and by 18 to both USC and Stanford in 2016-17. Even golden boy UCF has lost big since Penn State last did, with losing margins of 37, 18, 17 and 15 since 2016.
Then there are the non-Penn State Big Three of the Big Ten East:
Ohio State — The Buckeyes lost 31-0 to Clemson in the first round of the 2016 CFP; lost by 15 to Oklahoma and 31 to Iowa in 2017; and lost by 29 to Purdue a few weeks ago.
Michigan State — Since 2016, Sparty has lost by 45 to Ohio State, 33 to Penn State (in ’16), 24 to Wisconsin and 20 to Notre Dame.
Michigan — In 2017, the Wolverines lost by 29 to Penn State, 14 to Wisconsin and 11 to Ohio State. Their only loss in 2018 was by seven, 24-17, at Notre Dame in the season opener.
For its part, Oklahoma is 29-3 since Sept. 24, 2016, with its losses coming by a TD or less, against Iowa State, 28-31, and Georgia in double-overtime in the CFP, 54-48, in 2017; and by 48-45 to Texas earlier in 2018.
But wait, what about when Oklahoma was beaten down by the Buckeyes in 2016? That 45-24 loss came on Sept. 17, a week before Penn State’s last double-digit defeat.
Sooners or later, Penn State or Oklahoma — which concludes its ’18 regular season with Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas and West Virginia — will lose by a dime or more.
Vegas says it’ll be the Nittany Lions this Saturday. Recent says history otherwise.
