Penn State Football: Is Wisconsin a Must-Win Game?

Opening a season against an opponent in the Top 25 is not easy. Over the past half-century, Penn State has opened its football season against a ranked opponent only 10 times, winning six and losing four.

Dating back to 1972, when opening against a ranked foe, Penn State is 3-1 at home, and just 3-3 on the road and at a neutral site.

The last time Penn State began a season with a ranked opponent was 20 years ago. And that didn’t go so well – either in the game or on the season…or the seasons thereafter, for that matter.

On Sept. 1, 2001, the Nittany Lions hosted preseason No. 1 Miami (Fla.). The game was to have been a celebration of a renovated and expanded Beaver Stadium, and it trumpeted the triumphant return of Adam Taliaferro.

Taliaferro’s walk-job onto the field was certainly the highlight of the game. And, maybe, the season.

The Nittany Lions, who entered the game unranked on the heels of a 5-7 season, lost 33-7 to the Hurricanes before 109,313 fans, at that time the largest crowd in stadium history. Then, 9/11 hit and there wasn’t another game for three weeks.

Penn State lost the next three games – to Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan by a combined 62-24 — and went into a deep 19-26 tailspin.

That’s very, very unlikely to happen if Penn State, ranked No. 19 in the 2021 preseason Associated Press poll, falls in Madison on Saturday to No. 12 Wisconsin in a pivotal Big Ten match-up. The Nittany Lions are too good, too deep and too talented.

But, how costly would a Penn State loss at Wisconsin be?

a.) The 2021 season is over.

b.) Bring on Ball State and hello 1-1.

c.) A Big Ten title is still in reach.

The answer is d.) both b. and c. are correct.

But, a loss in Madison and then again to Auburn in the Sept. 18 Beaver Stadium Whiteout, the correct answer could quickly shift to a.) That would drop the Nittany Lion to 1-2 on the season and 8-9 over its previous 17 games.

RAISING ARIZONA

For Penn State, a lot is riding on what happens in Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday.

The last time Penn State opened the season with a win over a ranked opponent was in 1999, when the third-ranked Nittany Lions beat No. 4 Arizona, 41-7, in Beaver Stadium. PSU Board of Trustee member Brandon Short was a co-captain on that team. Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford, perhaps the oldest player on the PSU roster, was a year old.

Ancient history.

Let’s take a look at head coach James Franklin’s 6-4 history in opening games. He was 1-2 at Vanderbilt and is 5-2 at Penn State, having been outmanned and oversacked by Temple, 27-10, in 2015, and outreached by Indiana, 36-25, in 2020. Both games were on the road.

In opening month games – typically August-September, but we’re also counting October in the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign – Franklin is 0-7 when facing ranked opponents.

Beating Wisconsin would break that string. And it won’t be easy.

That’s why Franklin said this week that he’s applied extra pressure on his squad as it prepared for its 2021 season opener, when I asked him how opening with a big-time opponent is different.

“We try to put as much pressure on our guys as we possibly can in practice,” Franklin said,

“I think all you can do is do everything you possibly can to be as thorough and as detailed as you possibly can,” he added. “And talk about what it’s going to be like, show them what it’s going to be like and create as much pressure as you possibly can in practice with the fine line of also building confidence so that we can go in there and play well and play aggressive and play fast for four quarters.

“We spend a lot of time talking about situational football, covering all those topics in detail, not only in practice, but also in the meeting room, as well, and explain what the situation means, talk about what our philosophy is. So, we just try to do the best we can to get everybody prepared.”

In Franklin’s first season-opener at Penn State, he faced the daunting task of taking his team to Dublin, Ireland, to play a Central Florida squad that went on to finish 9-4. And Franklin’s players responded, winning 26-24.

NO CUPCAKES FOR YOU

But, Franklin will be the first to tell – as he did on Tuesday – that staring a season against a perennially tough conference opponent like Wisconsin is not the norm. At least it’s not what the Nittany Lions did in their biggest CJF Heyday from 2016-2019, when it started the season against the likes of Kent State (which finished 3-9) in2016, Akron (7-7) in 2017 and Idaho (5-7) in 2019. Appalachian State, which took Penn State to overtime before losing 45-38 in the 2018 opener, was the outlier (finishing 11-2).

“Some people build their schedule that way, where you play some out-of-conference games early on to build up to these types of opponents,” Franklin said, “and maybe work through some of the early season things that you saw.”

In other words, dine on cupcakes before the meat of the schedule comes along.

Penn State, as you know now, has no such luxury beginning on Saturday. Wisconsin is favored by as many as 6 points in the contest, then comes Ball State, 7-1 and a Top 25 team last year, and Auburn of the SEC.

The Nittany Lions have played 30 consecutive regular-season games against an unranked non-conference opponent, a streak that started after the Nittany Lions lost 27-11 to No. 3 Alabama on Sept. 10, 2011, in Beaver Stadium. Non-con record since then: 25-5.

It is possible that Ball State – ranked No. 36 in the initial AP Poll, if you go in the order of “others receiving votes” — could break that string, if it gets ranked after beating Western Illinois. It’s more likely that Auburn halts that streak. Auburn, which would be No. 30 in the preseason poll based on votes, opens its 2021 season with home games against Akron and Alabama State — two pretty sure-fire wins — before visiting Beaver Stadium.

IN PRAISE OF OLDER PLAYERS

Franklin said he that experience and his veteran players could make a difference on Saturday when Penn State plays its first regular season rad game with fans in 651 days – dating back to Nov. 23, 2019, a 28-17 loss to Ohio State at The Horseshoe. A good chunk of the Penn State players today were not even on the roster that day.

Which makes Franklin unsure how his team will react to the Jump Around in Camp Randall, and most especially the three quarters preceding it.

“You don’t ever truly know until you step out into that environment,” Franklin said. “The more veteran players you have helps with that. …The experience matters because those guys have been in those types of environments before.”

The current Nittany Lions have a total of 212 career starts to their credit, and just a combined 47 starts on the offensive line. The 212 is the third-lowest of the Franklin Era, while the only CJF returning O-line with fewer starts under its belts was the 2014 group — his first — with 43.

By comparison, the 2017 Nittany Lions entered their season-opener against Akron with a combined 359 starts, and the 2016 Nittany Lions that won the Big Ten title entered the season with 91 career starts along the O-line under the belts.

Experience matters.

No matter the outcome, playing at Wisconsin will be an opening day experience that none of the current Nittany Lions have had. Until Saturday.