You forgot 99, 02, 08 and 09 were better. 08 by a very very wide margin. This year's team has played the weakest schedule Penn State has played since joining the Big Ten, and not by a little bit.
Is it time for PSU fans to admit that we're actually pretty good?
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And everyone, including the players, coaches and fans, would like that to happen and cheer for it to happen. The argument here is when it doesn’t happen, some on here act like the team should bag the season and stop playing. That’s not what college football is about for the coaches, players and most fans. It’s about winning as many games as you can every year no matter what happens. In fact, that’s the goal of every athletic team. I guess most high school teams shouldn’t even play since they realistically have no chance to win a state championship.
Joe did not produce a too 10 every year either. His career record was about 9-3 and he did not inherit sanctions from Rip Engle.
This is just a dumb post on a number of levels. For starters, the sanctions didn't really impact a single Franklin team. Period. This is excuse is nonsense. It is an excuse to cover up the fact that Franklin was in over his head when he showed up and he brought a bunch of clowns with him to coach the offense. Deal with it. Second, Franklin hasn't sniffed a playoff birth which is a much lower bar than actually competing for a title, which Joe did many times, even late in his career. It also must be said that Joe's staff recruited at a level much higher than Franklin even after they were past their prime.
You’re second sentence makes this post an even dumber one on even more levels.
"The sanction did not impact Franklin?" That is moronic!! Psu only had about 6 scholarship OL when Franklin took over. Two of those 6 were RS freshman. Psu had no scholarship punters until 2016. Franklin only had 5 LBs when he took over and Wooten was not a P5 LB.
You are clueless! All the two stars that psu signed during sanctions were on the roster. Psu signed guys who were headed to marshall, UMass, Toledo and so on. Probably about a dozen+ out of 65 were guys that would of ended up at mid majors. The 4 stars did not transfer back to psu.
In 2014 psu had zero qbs with more than one season experience. It was hack and freshman. Hack was not even ready.
Even when psu got the numbers back it was 5 years before we had a full roster with full experience.
Ps. Who gave Sandusky a key to the locker room? It was not Franklin. Success with honor.
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Name the year PSU played 2 teams that were undefeated after 10 games. We opened the season on the road against the team that returned more starters than any other big 10 team from a 9 win year. Purdue was significantly more of a challenge in week 1 at home than at this point of the season. We also destroyed a Minnesota team that is tied for the big 10 west.
Keep beating the false weak schedule line. I've attached a link below that has PSU as having played the 7th toughest schedule so far. Current College Football SOS
Why are you so hellbent on crapping on this team?
He has an agenda…he doesn’t like Franklin so he’s going to sh!t on everything Franklin related.
Having 40 something scholarship players didn’t affect the 2014-15 teams? You’re out of your mind. And Franklin did an incredible job of redshirting guys in 2014-15 to give us a chance to compete when we went back to full strength in 2016. He manipulated the roster masterfully during that tricky time. Getting us back so quickly has led to the intensifying criticism. 2016, 2017 and 2019 we certainly were in “sniffing” distance of the playoff. Winning a few of those close games that were decided by a play or two would only change the perception of him, not his actual coaching job. 2021 is literally the only season where there’s a legit gripe but you could say the staff did a great job keeping this team in games with zero run game. It’s certainly improved this year and the team is set up really well moving forward. Franklin deserves credit for that. At this point the good far outweighs the bad. But that’s a big picture view as if a fan can take a step back from the last thing they saw..
Ummmmm...... because he is a douche posing-fan troll. He is not a PSU fan - his act, like his fellow posing-fan trolls, is old and tired.
You think 99, 02, 08 and 09 were better than 16, 17 and 19? Maybe equivalent to, but better?
Seriously curious.
Sure...I guess I'd just say that PSU should be competitive and muster somewhere above a .333 win percentage against OSU and probably better than .500 against Michigan, which has been a dumpster fire since Lloyd Carr's departure.
You’re kidding, right? The 2012 and 2013 squads had 65 players on scholarship. That’s what he inherited. It was increased to 75 for his first season in 2014 and then 80 in 2015 before the full 85 in 2016. The transfer rules weren’t what there are now, so it was almost exclusively freshman being brought in to refill things to 85.
Not near enough appreciation for O’Brien and Franklin having four winning seasons with 65, 65, 75 and 80 scholarships (and the many other challenges).
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Read the title of the thread. We are pretty good, if you can't admit that then I can't help you. Are we elite? No.
From '16-'20 we went 3-2 against Mich. Then they caught fire. Key is to catch them now.
The offensive line on that team alone would grind any Franklin team into the dust.
I was at that 1981 Pitt game…probably the most hostile environment I have ever been in…by a wide margin. Against a team with an NFL HOF QB and brimming with NFL caliber talent. And undefeated and #1 ranked.
1981 team also went into Nebraska and defeated a perennial power Nebraska team. One of the toughest places to win in the country at that time.
And then defeated USC in the Fiesta Bowl that featured Heisman Trophy winner and NFL HOFer Marcus Allen.
Light years beyond anything Franklin has produced.
Joe built Penn State (the football team and the University) into a national power.
“Pitt played a weak schedule—Florida State, which ended with a 6-5 record, was the only first-rate opponent among the Cincinnatis, Rutgerses and Armys.”
It Was The Pits For Pitt
On a hot day in Pittsburgh last summer, Pitt Coach Jackie Sherrill talked candidly about his football team, saying, "We're a year away from a national
vault.si.com
To be clear… your rebuttal to my assertion that there were probably a lot of Penn State fans at that road game is that you, a Penn State fan, were at that road game?
I don’t think anyone disagrees that we are pretty good. The bitch is that we aren’t elite or competing for Big Ten championships.
Man, what a total failure this year has been then. We have some of the worst fans in CFB.
Is this a serious comment? He is tbe winningest coach of all-time, with wins in all major bowls and the best big game records (bowls - when no one opted out) of any coach.
He was grotesquely underpaid and even at that donated millions to Penn State.
Yes, terrible, terrible…
Who coached the 2003 team?
Do you count joes wins vs non top ten teams? It seems like you only count Franklin's wins vs top ten teams.
Jow was the winningest all time with a career average of 9-3. Don't complain when other coaches go 9-3.
Joes salary is not relevant. He should have hired a better agent.
And "Mr Baseball" led the club in 9th inning doubles in the month of Aug.
I don't say that to be a d*ck, but stats can be carved up to say anything.
The conversation is about Franklin and he is 3-6 against Mich and 1-8 against OSU.
I mean, Mich was a dumpster fire under DickRod and Hoke, and then they hired khaki pants who is a giant wierdo who alienates every employer he's had. He has one less year at Mich than JF has at PSU. Saying "they caught fire" without acknowledging that Harbaugh has apparently turned scUM around and is outperforming JF is a tad misleading.
I think Franklin isn't doing as well as he could but he's doing pretty well considering . And you have to give credit where it's due . The Michigan loss would have been blunted if we could've beat OSU.
And that's the rub, always falling short , just a tiny bit but I'll take 10-2 over worse. Most games have been enjoyable with certain obvious exceptions lol. Maryland being my favorite .
I love seeing a loss on every play by Maryland and them punting on something like 4-29. That's an encouraging sign.
Good article from Jones today on who we are vs Ohio State and Michigan. You have to have a pennlive subscription to read it, but it basically says we are what our recruiting talent says we should be and that it dates back to the mid-90s.
Add to that, early in Joe’s career, that were fewer games in a season. I remember 11-0 twice in a row which included the Orange Boel wins ove KS and Mizzou.
It's very possible that this is an anomaly and Mich regresses, but however you characterize it, it's inescapable that JF is 3-6 against Mich (3-5 against Jimmah) Moving to 4-6 next year would be positive, but I don't think it's crazy to think that PSU should be no worse than .500 against Michigan. JF is currently 3 years of perfection away from that at this point.
Right about where psu should be based on recruiting. UM has out recruited psu 7 out of the last 10 years. OSU hans out recruited psu 10 out of the last 10 years. What should PSUs record be vs OSU?
10-2 with a bowl win over a ranked opponent, 11-2, good season. 10-3, with a loss against 3 ranked opponents, meh
Michigan has outrecruited PSU in 7 out of the last 10 based on which site? It appears to be close to even during that time. Not to mention, IMO, PSU has put out FAR better players in the NFL than Hairball has during his time -- even more of an indictment about not reaching the heights that we should have. On a separate point, so even if Michigan has slightly been better in recruiting (which I think is negligible) that means we shouldn't be able to rise up and play better -- to be able to win these big games against them? There are so many examples in every CFB season of teams beating others who might have more talent -- and in TAMU, Miami, and a plethora of other cases, teams with great recruiting numbers who lose to garbage annually. But, this idea that we shouldn't be beating Michigan more b/c of recruiting is ridiculous...the numbers I bet are so close averaging the stars, so to speak. And, as we all know, recruiting *stars are many times subjective and biased. We can simply tell by watching the games, which team has better players at certain positions, etc. If you look back at JF's games vs JH, simply based on players on the field, there aren't many positions you would take JH's guys over ours -- except where it really matters, the LOS. Hence, why PSU is stuck in a rut annually.
I get it that some people just don't care for Franklin. That's ok. But there are some who have Franklin derangement syndrome like that guy and all objectivity is lost to bull$shit and bluster.
Ok...if you think the talent gap is that seismic with us and Michigan, I think you are wrong...I don't have the time to look it up. Clearly both programs are under OSU. But, your general premise is that what you are, you are, and shouldn't expect more. Yet, literally every week in CFB, pretty much disproves that. And, the talent difference b/w us and MIchigan, if there even is one, is so small. It's not like us and Bama.
