It is Ohio State Week. It’s so big, it deserves its own All-22.
Here we go:
1. This is Game No. 121 of James Franklin’s career at Penn State — and the most important. He is 4-14 vs. Ohio State and Michigan, and just as stunning is his 1-5 record against those two teams in the past three years. The win? That 27-17 victory at Michigan in COVID 2020.
In the 2023 preseason, Franklin wrote a lot of checks he now needs to cash — beginning with the Board of Trustees meeting on Feb. 17, when he hyped how good he expected this year’s squad to be. He pointed out that the 2023 version of his team was ranked No. 5 in the country in a very, very (very) early ranking by ESPN. And he mentioned it three times, while also giving big-time props to Ohio State and Michigan.
“We’re very aware of what we need to do in taking the next steps,” Franklin said at the time. “The Rose Bowl championship was awesome. I’m glad everybody got a chance to enjoy it. But now these guys and our program are moving forward. We understand what the expectations are at a place like Penn State — and we completely embrace them.”
2. Franklin has made nearly $68 million — counting salary, bonuses, life insurance cash, car and private aircraft hours — since becoming Penn State head coach on Jan. 11, 2014. He’s done a terrific job of building a successful and consistent program, revamping facilities, growing a full-time football staff to almost 80 people and regularly beating who he has to…
2b. …Except for Ohio State and Michigan.
3. That time is now. It looked like 2023-24 was a two-year window for beating Ohio State/Michigan and making it into what will soon be a 12-team College Football Playoff. But, with a 2024 schedule that includes Ohio State, UCLA and Washington at home, and USC and Wisconsin on the road, and the likely loss of Manny Diaz and a large number of top-notch defenders, Franklin’s time is now.
As in right now, beginning with the Big Noon kick in The Horseshoe on Saturday.
4. ESPN College GameDay will be in Columbus for its Saturday morning pre-game show. Per the Columbus Dispatch:
“This is Ohio State’s second appearance on College GameDay this season after their Week 4 game at No. 9 Notre Dame on Sept. 23. (The Buckeyes won on what essentially was a walk-off Chip Trayanum touchdown, 17-14). The Buckeyes appeared on College GameDay three times in 2022, hosting twice and going 1-1. Ohio State has the most College GameDay appearances all time of any team with 58, and they are 39-18 on College GameDay all-time. The Week 8 appearance, Penn State’s first in 2023, will be the Nittany Lions’ 25th all-time. They enter the game 10-14 in their previous GameDay appearances.”
5. FOX is broadcasting the Penn State-Ohio State matchup, and will also be at The Horseshoe as the site of its “Big Noon Kickoff” pre-game show.
6. Franklin didn’t want to talk about the Buckeyes at 7:31 p.m. Saturday in the Beaver Stadium media room, when asked by veteran beat reporter Neil Rudel of The (Altoona) Mirror about Ohio State with the very last question of the evening (see my Tweet above). Franklin said he wanted to enjoy the 63-0 victory over UMass, a squad that is 4-46 in its last 50 games, and is the very worst program in major college football.
6a. No. 0 and co-captain Dom DeLuca had zero to say about the Buckeyes. DeLuca told me he didn’t even know until after the UMass game that Penn State was playing Ohio State next week. “Dom, really?” I said, then had this quick exchange:
“What do you know about Ohio State?” I asked DeLuca.
“They’re in the Big Ten,” he answered.
6b. QB1 Drew Allar didn’t want to talk Ohio State either, when I asked him about having been to Ohio Stadium to see the Buckeyes play (see above video). Allar played his high school football at Ken Dukes Stadium, 777 E. Union St., in Medina, Ohio. That’s a 113-mile drive to Ohio Stadium at 411 Woody Hayes Drive in Columbus.
7. Ohio State is the last team to beat Penn State — PSU has reeled off 11 consecutive wins since. (Five in 2022, six in 2023). Since the second-ranked Buckeyes downed No. 13 Penn State 41-33 in Beaver Stadium on Oct. 29, 2022, come Saturday it will be 357 days since Penn State lost a football game. It is the longest winning streak of Franklin’s 10-year coaching career at Penn State.
8. Since that game against Penn State in 2022, Ohio State:
• went 3-2 to finish the 2022 season
• lost to Michigan, 45-23, in the ’22 regular season finale
• made the CFP, losing 42-41 to eventual national champ Georgia in the semifinals
• is 6-0 in 2023
• beat Notre Dame, 17-14, in South Bend
• defeated Purdue on the road, 41-7, on Saturday
9. Franklin is 1-8 vs. Ohio State, with the lone win coming in 2016, with Grant Haley’s scoop-and-score TD coming off of Marcus Allen’s block of Buckeye Tyler Durbin’s 45-yard field goal attempt. The touchdown came with 4:27 remaining in the WhiteOut contest and sealed Penn State’s 24-21 upset of No. 2 Ohio State. (This is an Ohio State preview; I had to include this clip.)
10. In all but two years of the series dating back to Franklin’s first year (2014), Penn State has tied or led vs. Ohio State:
2014 — 4Q: 17-17; OT: 24-17
2015 — 1Q: 3-0
2016 — 4Q/final: 24-21
2017 — 1Q: 7-0, 14-0, 14-3; 2Q: 21-10, 28-10, 28-17; 3Q: 28-20, 35-20; 4Q: 35-27, 38-27, 38-33
2018 — 1Q: 3-0; 2Q: 6-0, 13-0, 13-7; 4Q: 20-14, 26-14, 26-21
2019 — never tied or led
2020 — never tied or led
2021 — 1Q: 7-0, 7-3; 3Q: 17-17
2022 — 2Q: 14-10; 4Q: 21-16
11. Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, who is 4-0 vs. Franklin, and 51-6 (and 34-2 in the Big Ten, with the two losses vs. TTUN) while leading the Buckeyes, says his team is not ready for Penn State. Savvy move.
12. How close is Penn State to closing the gap between itself and Michigan and Ohio State? I asked that question of defensive coordinator Manny Diaz and offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich in late December 2022, a few days before the start of last season’s College Football Playoff, which included both No. 2 Michigan and No. 4 Ohio State. Michigan was in the CFP for the second consecutive season and the Buckeyes were in their fifth playoffs since they were started in 2014.
13. “It’s a great question,” Diaz replied. “It feels like a broad question, like there’s these grandiose things that we have to do. And I don’t think the players from the locker room see it that way…. It may just take a moment. Or a thing happens in the course of the game. That creates that belief. Belief is a very, very powerful thing. So, I think our players see that
“The great thing about being our league,” Diaz noted, “is we’ve got a very, very high standard that we have to live up to.”
14. Yurcich has seen Ohio State’s success firsthand. Yurcich, now in his third season as the Nittany Lions’ offensive coordinator, was the passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Ohio State in 2019. It was Ryan Day’s first full season as the Buckeyes’ head coach. Ohio State finished 13-1 after being ranked No. 2 in the CFP, before falling 29-23 to Clemson. That season, the Buckeyes beat Penn State 28-17.
“Yeah, that’s a great question,” was Yurcich’s reply. “I think what we need to do is make sure that we’re executing better and that we’re coaching better. I think all those things add up. I don’t think it’s one thing necessarily.
“That’s a very complex question that a lot of things factor into it. I think we need to continue to recruit at a championship level. It starts with that. But at the end of the day, we have to continue to take care of the ball and finish — and control what we can control.”
15. Penn State all-time vs. Ohio State is 14-24. Home: 6-10; Away: 7-14. Neutral: 1-0. Big Ten: 8-22.
16. Here’s how other Penn State notables have fared against Ohio State:
16a. Athletic director Pat Kraft, as a linebacker wearing No. 47 at Indiana: 0-2. 1997 — 31-0 loss, Columbus; 1998 — 38-7 loss, Bloomington, Ill. 16b. Tight end coach Ty Howle, as a Penn State O-lineman: 1-4; as an analyst/coach: 0-3. 16c. Defensive line coach Deion Barnes, as a Penn State D-lineman: 1-3; as a GA/coach: 0-3. 16d. Cornerbacks coach Terry Smith, as a Penn State wide receiver: never played Ohio State; as an assistant coach, 1-8.
17. The last time Penn State won in The Horseshoe was on Nov. 19, 2011. Tom Bradley brought the Nittany Lions to town as interim head coach, just 10 days after Joe Paterno was fired. Penn State had lost 17-14 to Nebraska in an emotionally-raw Beaver Stadium the week before. Although 8-2 and ranked No. 21 in the country, the Lions were not given much of a chance against a 6-4 Ohio State team that was also rocked by scandal. Luke Fickel was a one-season replacement for Jim Tressel, who resigned in May amidst an NCAA investigation. Bradley busted out the Wildcat offense as the Nittany Lions scored on four of their first five possessions then held on to win, 20-14.
17a. Bradley was also on the sidelines, acting as a de facto head coach, when third-ranked Penn State defeated No. 10 Ohio State, 13-6, on Oct. 25, 2008. With an injured Paterno relegated to the press box throughout the game and even at the half, Bradley’s defense dominated the game and held the 10th-ranked Buckeyes to two field goals, OSU’s fewest points at home since 1982.
Ohio State gained just 61 yards on 31 carries before a national night-time TV audience and a then-record Ohio Stadium crowd of 105,711. It was Penn State’s first win at Ohio State since joining the Big Ten in 1993. Ohio State QB Terrelle Pryor threw for 226 yards, with one pick and one fumble – more on that later – while the Nittany Lions did not have a single turnover or penalty themselves.
18. It has been five years since the “Good, Great, Elite” game against Ohio State in Beaver Stadium on Sept. 29, 2018. That’s when Penn State went for it on fourth-and-5 with 1:16 to go, down 27-26, on Ohio State’s 43-yard line. Trace McSorley, who had run for 175 yards and two TD and passed for 286 more, handed off to Miles Sanders., who lost two yards. Penn State lost the game.
19. Here is what Franklin said after the game: “We’ve gone from an average football team to a good football team to a great football team, and we’ve worked really hard to do those things, but we’re not an elite football team yet. And as hard as we have worked to go from average to good, from good to great, the work that it’s going to take to get to an elite program is gonna be just as hard as the ground and the distance that we’ve already traveled…
“Right now we’re comfortable being great, and I’m gonna make sure that everybody in our program, including myself, is very uncomfortable. Because you only grow in life when you’re uncomfortable. So we are going to break through and become an elite program by doing all the little things…
“It’s my job as the head coach; I am ultimately responsible for all of it. And I will find a way — we will find a way — and with all the support of everybody in this community, everybody on this campus…”
20. By quarter, here is how Franklin’s teams have done vs. Ohio State from 2014-2022; Penn State has won the third quarter:
| Team | 1Q | 2Q | 3Q | 4Q | OT | Total | Avg. |
| PSU | 30 | 51 | 59 | 72 | 7 | 212 | 23.6 |
| OSU | 44 | 95 | 49 | 97 | 14 | 299 | 33.2 |
21. Penn State returns to The Horseshoe in two seasons, a brief foray into its old pattern since joining the Big Ten in 1993. But, after that, it’ll be awhile, as the Buckeyes roll off completely in 2026 and 2027. Here is what Penn State’s schedule looks like in the next five seasons vs. Ohio State (and Michigan):
2024 — Ohio State, Beaver Stadium
2025 — Ohio State, The Horseshoe
2026 — Michigan, The Big House
2027 — Michigan, Beaver Stadium
2028 — Ohio State, Beaver Stadium
22. Speaking of the Wolverines: After Penn State plays in The Horseshoe on Saturday, it will be 21 days until the Nittany Lions host Michigan in Beaver Stadium.
