It’s been a long football season. Already.
Make that two seasons:
By 11 p.m. on Saturday night, Penn State will have played 17 games in 53 weeks. By Nov. 27, Penn State will have played 21 games in a little more than 13 months. None of them bowls. That’s a ton.
And only now is Penn State beginning to face the heart of its 2021 schedule.
Coach James Franklin and his team have to feel as if they’ve already been through the ringer. Fans, too. Especially after the last two weeks.
The Nittany Lions, ranked No. 20 in the nation with a 5-2 record, still have a pulse. But barely.
It’s a far cry from just two weeks ago — it seems like a month or two, right? — when they were Lion-hearted, ranked No. 4 in the country and on the cusp of using a potential road win over then-third-ranked Iowa as a springboard to a 7-0 start.
That would have put Penn State No. 2 in the nation and on a collision course for a massive showdown with the fifth-ranked Buckeyes (6-1) in The Horseshoe on Saturday night.
Would have.
Instead, all we got was the collision:
An injured Sean Clifford, an out-for-the-season PJ Mustipher and 10 fourth-quarter points by Iowa, followed by a gut-wrenching and ugly nine-overtime loss to a struggling Illinois.
Throw in the rumors of CJF to USC and LSU — hey, I personally think Miami (Fla.), which is on the 24/7 Manny Diaz Watch, is also a significant option for him; my goodness, they desperately need a leader like him — and his repeated, convoluted non-denials, and a season that was looking like a CFP is now frightening close to DOA.
And it’s all happened…just…like…that.
The result is an up and then DOWN DOWN season that has seemingly been going on for months and months.
The next month was supposed to be, and still is, the meat of the order.
Beginning Saturday night in Columbus, the Nittany Lions will play five games in 29 days. Three of those will be against Big Ten East division rivals who are in the Top 10.
No. 5 Ohio State is 7-1. No. 6 Michigan is 7-0. No. 7 Michigan State is 7-0.
Penn State has more losses than the three of them combined.
But, if the Nittany Lions defeat at least two of those Big Three, the season will surely be salvaged. Then, with a bowl win victory and beatdowns of Maryland and Rutgers, a 10-3 is possible. But so is a 7-6.
SO MUCH SO SOON
The 2021 season began with such promise and noise.
There was the big Big Ten road opener. The early-season Whiteout against the first visit by SEC opponent in a decade. GameDay back on campus. A defense that owned the red zone, twice saving a pair of games in the waning moments. The payback, shutout win vs. Indiana. Two national night-time telecasts in three weeks. A meteoric rise from No. 19 to No. 4 in five weeks.
It…was…all…so much. So early.
Even Franklin thinks so.
On Wednesday night, I asked him if the front-loaded schedule – (then) No. 15 Wisconsin and (now) No. 18 Auburn over the course of 15 days – was a strain physically and psychology. In previous years, those were spots reserved for the likes of Idaho (a 79-7 win in 2019), Kent State (a 63-10 win in 2018) and Georgia State (a 56-0 win in 2017).
He agreed.
“From a scheduling philosophy,” Franklin said, “whether it’s a Big Ten scheduling philosophy, whether it’s our own scheduling philosophy, our beginning of the season was very challenging. It was very physical against physical-style teams.
“With that comes wear and tear and the importance of development from a depth perspective. One of the other things we’ve been able to do in years past is play a lot of guys early on, then have them for depth later in the season. We really didn’t get to do that early on this season.”
Or last season, for that matter.
What Franklin said about the early part of the 2021 schedule also held true for 2020, when Penn State — and all Big Ten teams — only played conference games. There were no cupcakes, no non-con games that yielded plenty of playing time and experience and a taste of success at the next level for younger players.
And, normally, it would have also provided an opportunity for the new schemes and strategies of a new offensive coordinator (Kirk Ciarrocca in 2020, Mike Yurcich in 2021) to be more slowly integrated against lesser competition.
In that way, and others, last season – which kicked off on Oct. 24, 2020 – has kind of bled into the 2021 campaign. Penn State played three regular season games last December, a first in the program’s storied history. Along the way, Penn State has had:
A five-game losing streak.
A four-game winning streak.
Then a five-game winning streak.
And now, a two-game losing streak.
They are 9-7 overall and 6-7 in the Big Ten. At the same time, Ohio State has been 13-2 overall and 10-0 in the Big Ten – counting the Big Ten title game. One of Ohio State’s two losses was to Alabama in 2020 national title game.
Ciarrocca came and went, though Penn State is still paying him.
Will Levis also left, and is much closer to a payday of his own.
Covid came. It stayed. It might be leaving.
And, who knows, so might James Franklin.
On Saturday, it will be a year and a day since Penn State last played Ohio State, a 38-25 loss in Beaver Stadium. It sure seems a lot longer than that.
