WE ARE going to be REALLY GOOD this year....and here is why...

[LaJolla Lion]

Sure, whatever..except it does not work that way. Wins and losses will eventually fall on coach. If you strive for moral victories against OSU, MSU then congrats, JF has reached the mountain top.

Oh another victim here, how cute. The coach has the program on solid footing and the W's will occur there in some years and some years they won't. You know it took Dabo 9 years to climp up that mountain without sactions or a hole and in a much weaker division and conference. I know in this world we have our share of we needed that MNC yesterday knee jerk idiots, but what f--king coach do you think will step in today and win the MNC this year? I mean a realistic option too, because you probably don't have one and just want to b!tch because it somehow makes you a better fan I guess. So who is the fantasy mystery coach you need to run PSU right now?

Every single coach out there has lost games they shouldn't have.

 

[marshall23]

Always be skeptical of support that has a butt attached.

 

[tboyer]

One of the 100 things I like about Franklin is that he would be the first to say he has NOT reached the mountaintop. He would never make statements like Paterno made that fans should lower their expectations and be happy with 9-4.

For the first time in over 20 years, thanks to Franklin, Penn State actually has talent that can match up position-for-position with programs like Ohio State and Michigan. Can't wait to see what this group of players can do.

Sure, whatever..except it does not work that way. Wins and losses will eventually fall on coach. If you strive for moral victories against OSU, MSU then congrats, JF has reached the mountain top.

 

[SLion]

Oh another victim here, how cute. The coach has the program on solid footing and the W's will occur there in some years and some years they won't. You know it took Dabo 9 years to climp up that mountain without sactions or a hole and in a much weaker division and conference. I know in this world we have our share of we needed that MNC yesterday knee jerk idiots, but what f--king coach do you think will step in today and win the MNC this year? I mean a realistic option too, because you probably don't have one and just want to b!tch because it somehow makes you a better fan I guess. So who is the fantasy mystery coach you need to run PSU right now?

Every single coach out there has lost games they shouldn't have.

No need for the drama here. I love Coach Franklin overall. He is a great representative, recruiter, person and a good coach. I am not expecting Dabo like success so not sure why you bring in that comparison. We have great facilities, great tradition and fervent fan base that packs 107k nearly every game. Our expectations should be higher in terms of beating OSU, UM and MSU more than once every 4 years. We went 0-4 against OSU and MSU last two years when should have been 4-0 or worse 3-1. That is tough pill for us and the shine as a program. Little Jimmie Harbaugh won't survive losing to OSU every year, even if he gets 9 wins most years. Agree or disagree? You want to point to 9 wins and say great success overall, go ahead. We are not exactly beating murderers row to get to 9 wins lately. Pointing that out does not mean I want JF fired. I just want more.

 

[Raffycorn]

No need for the drama here. I love Coach Franklin overall. He is a great representative, recruiter, person and a good coach. I am not expecting Dabo like success so not sure why you bring in that comparison. We have great facilities, great tradition and fervent fan base that packs 107k nearly every game. Our expectations should be higher in terms of beating OSU, UM and MSU more than once every 4 years. We went 0-4 against OSU and MSU last two years when should have been 4-0 or worse 3-1. That is tough pill for us and the shine as a program. Little Jimmie Harbaugh won't survive losing to OSU every year, even if he gets 9 wins most years. Agree or disagree? You want to point to 9 wins and say great success overall, go ahead. We are not exactly beating murderers row to get to 9 wins lately. Pointing that out does not mean I want JF fired. I just want more.

In two of the last three seasons we had 11 wins. Seems a little strange to think that anyone’s pointing to 9 wins.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

No need for the drama here. I love Coach Franklin overall. He is a great representative, recruiter, person and a good coach. I am not expecting Dabo like success so not sure why you bring in that comparison. We have great facilities, great tradition and fervent fan base that packs 107k nearly every game. Our expectations should be higher in terms of beating OSU, UM and MSU more than once every 4 years. We went 0-4 against OSU and MSU last two years when should have been 4-0 or worse 3-1. That is tough pill for us and the shine as a program. Little Jimmie Harbaugh won't survive losing to OSU every year, even if he gets 9 wins most years. Agree or disagree? You want to point to 9 wins and say great success overall, go ahead. We are not exactly beating murderers row to get to 9 wins lately. Pointing that out does not mean I want JF fired. I just want more.

JH has yet to win D!ck at UM, JF has. You can try and act as if PSU was clearly the most talented team in the league if you want to play make pretend, but they weren't. You can point to one 9 win season in the last 3 years and pretend that is the new norm, go ahead....but it's not really the case. Then you can try and pretend the B1G east is somehow soft, but it really is quite the opposite. You have 4 teams that pretty much camp out in the top 20 and some years will be better than others. Odd how last year is now the norm, but the back to back BCS bowl births the 2 years prior are now an after thought and the ship is sinking.

Everyone wants more, but some of us dabble in reality and realize it also takes some luck along the way to get to the top. Clemson lost to Pitt the year they won a MNC. Bama has dropped games to Ole Miss, but made their way to the title games. Sorry I'm not joining the woe is me pity party. Let me guess you're thinking this is a 12-0 team...as I see it being anywhere from 8-11 wins. @OSU, @Iowa, and @ MSU are tough outs. UM is the conference favorite....but then again...we play nobody and the schedule is easy according to you. If you limited to this OOC, I'd agree, but you didn't so your schedule statement isn't even true. This team has the potential to be really good on D, but on O we're breaking in a new QB, RB, and LT. We'll see how quickly they come up to speed, but wait....it doesn't matter, it's just the HC.

 

[SLion]

JH has yet to win D!ck at UM, JF has. Clemson lost to Pitt the year they won a MNC. Bama has dropped games to Ole Miss, but made NC

Well, JH has stomped Franklin 3 out of 4 times. I would take a random loss to Terps or Gophers if it meant running table and beating likes of Alabama, Notre Dame and OSU. Personally I just hate losing to OSU, UM and MSU with so much consistency. You can make it more dramatic if you want. I do judge JF on those consistent losses but go ahead and treat all wins equal if that serves some point.

 

[PSU&Trout]

I think you can be 100% in Franklin's corner and also believe he has room to grow with game coaching on the big stage. You can point to examples of really good game coaching and also to games where decisionmaking was shaky and I'm sure James would agree. Coaches have a growing process just like players. Every big time coach including Saban has had to get experience coaching in high profile, high-pressure games. No substitute for experience.

But if you want to evaluate Franklin based on the whole package, on the 6 or 8 jobs that a head coach does, there can be absolutely no doubt he is a phenomenal football coach and PSU is extremely lucky to have him. Who could even question that?

Recruiting and player development are really the most important jobs of a head coach, and Franklin (and Galt) are doing about as well as anybody in the country. Penn State is an NFL pipeline like it hasn't been in 25 years, and it is a pipeline for literally every position on the football field, which Penn State never was before.

And it's not like Franklin is recruiting and developing but not seeing results on the field. Players play their hearts out for Franklin -- you can see it. Player leadership in games has been exceptional and allowed them to pull out tight games. Scheming and play calling has been really good on both sides of the ball. They have blown out some very strong football teams (like Michigan in 2017) and they also have won super close games with clutch play (like App State last year and Iowa the year before).

And I definitely agree that depth, particularly OL and DL depth, was a big part of losing to tOSU and MSU the last two seasons, and depth should be better this year barring injuries.

Franklin fixed what he had to fix this offseason with Lorig and Parker. And hopefully Rahne has a great sophomore season and answers the questions that a lot of people have about his game-day coaching ability. Rahne is the biggest question mark on the team as I see it, but there too, my guess is Rahne shows a lot of improvement this year as he grows into the job.

Great Post. From sentence one on!

 

[Behrendfutbol]

Too much inexperience and too many brand new players to expect much this season. Qb has not thrown more than a handful of passes. Leading tackler on defense wasn't even a starter last year. Defense wise the d line wore down last year and lacks depth. New safety this year and new starting corner. Poor fg kicking. Poor special teams. No go to wide receiver and new running back. Lost 3 starters on o line which wasn't very good anyway. I'm happy with 7-5.

Three years ago Trace McSorley was a redshirt freshman with very little game experience. How did that year go? True freshmen and redshirt freshmen start with enough regularity in Power 5 football that the inexperience “reason” for fear and doubt about our prospects is possibly the least valid. May Clifford be more McSorley than Bolden and let’s enjoy the hell outta this season. Only Jack Ham until Penn State Football.

 

[nittany119]

Well, JH has stomped Franklin 3 out of 4 times. I would take a random loss to Terps or Gophers if it meant running table and beating likes of Alabama, Notre Dame and OSU. Personally I just hate losing to OSU, UM and MSU with so much consistency. You can make it more dramatic if you want. I do judge JF on those consistent losses but go ahead and treat all wins equal if that serves some point.

You really think it’s a smart move to compare JH to JF? So in those stomp games there were no mitigating circumstances. I might be wrong, but I think I remember when we got stomped by UM in 2016, that was their high point and our low point. I think I remember a game in Indy in Dec that year. The booger picker couldn’t find Indy with a gps and a Google server. I also remember we had what, about 45 scholarship athletes when they stomped us. Bitch all you want, but at least make realistic comparisons. And JH is definitely on the hot seat this year. He really needs to win according to the UM people I speak with.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

Well, JH has stomped Franklin 3 out of 4 times. I would take a random loss to Terps or Gophers if it meant running table and beating likes of Alabama, Notre Dame and OSU. Personally I just hate losing to OSU, UM and MSU with so much consistency. You can make it more dramatic if you want. I do judge JF on those consistent losses but go ahead and treat all wins equal if that serves some point.

I’ll take the BT titles. Sorry you have such low expectations. He has losing records against his rival. Oooops dopey, he’s NEVER EVEN beaten them. How is his record against MSU as well? Yeah, he never loses late either. You REALLY suck at this.

 

[scueng77]

I’ll take the BT titles. Sorry you have such low expectations. He has losing records against his rival. Oooops dopey, he’s NEVER EVEN beaten them. How is his record against MSU as well? Yeah, he never loses late either. You REALLY suck at this.

Ouch. SLion pwned

 

[PSU_Smitty]

I think this year is the year we see what depth and a roster full of all 4 and 5 stars can do, like it was mentioned earlier it took Dabo how many years to build a consistent contender and now Franklin has us on that trajectory, I see a lot of people bitching about his record against top teams, his record against this team that team, I truly believe if Franklin was never hired we wouldnt even be arguing over 8-11 win seasons, I've been waiting a very long time to go into a season and say to myself, this year with a few breaks and some luck we can win them all

 

[MontereyLion]

With the sanctions that we had to deal with it is truly amazing that we did not have a losing season through all of that mess. Let's give credit where credit is deserved.

 

[nittany119]

With the sanctions that we had to deal with it is truly amazing that we did not have a losing season through all of that mess. Let's give credit where credit is deserved.

We’re just lucky to be playing football!

 

[africamurphy]

So, to paraphrase, depth and talent are meaningless?

I'll use my Jay Paterno...EA Sports "rookie" mode analogy.

If you give Jay Paterno far better players than the other guy, he will probably win. If you give me a "rookie" level at EA Sports college football game, I'll probably win. I'm not very good at the game...but with superior talent, I'm fine.

But where things get dicey is when I have equal talent...or JayPa had EQUAL talent as the other guy. Then, it's likely that we'll lose. Because I'm not very good at the game. Neither was JayPa.

Our coaches need to pull out MORE of the games when we are playing against teams with equal talent. And we must STOP losing games where our talent is better (i.e. Maryland 2015, Pitt 2016, MSU 2017 and 2018, Kentucky 2018). The talent and depth are there now. I think it's time we go 11-2 (or 12-2) this season.

 

[AWS1022]

I'll use my Jay Paterno...EA Sports "rookie" mode analogy.

If you give Jay Paterno far better players than the other guy, he will probably win. If you give me a "rookie" level at EA Sports college football game, I'll probably win. I'm not very good at the game...but with superior talent, I'm fine.

But where things get dicey is when I have equal talent...or JayPa had EQUAL talent as the other guy. Then, it's likely that we'll lose. Because I'm not very good at the game. Neither was JayPa.

Our coaches need to pull out MORE of the games when we are playing against teams with equal talent. And we must STOP losing games where our talent is better (i.e. Maryland 2015, Pitt 2016, MSU 2017 and 2018, Kentucky 2018). The talent and depth are there now. I think it's time we go 11-2 (or 12-2) this season.

Please show me a coach who doesn’t lose to teams with lesser talent....I’m waiting. Also, who gets to arbitrarily determine who has better talent? Is that your job? In 2015, we didn’t have much better talent than too many teams. In 2016, Pitt was favored. In 2017, MSU didn’t live up to expectations, but they had plenty of talent. And in 2018, that was the best team in UK’s history and they had plenty of talent. You act like we lost to MAC teams. You’re also failing to take into consideration factors such as injuries, weather conditions, a dropped INT that would have sealed the game, and so on.

 

[ILLINOISLION]

Please show me a coach who doesn’t lose to teams with lesser talent....I’m waiting. Also, who gets to arbitrarily determine who has better talent? Is that your job? In 2015, we didn’t have much better talent than too many teams. In 2016, Pitt was favored. In 2017, MSU didn’t live up to expectations, but they had plenty of talent. And in 2018, that was the best team in UK’s history and they had plenty of talent. You act like we lost to MAC teams. You’re also failing to take into consideration factors such as injuries, weather conditions, a dropped INT that would have sealed the game, and so on.

This past year’s Kentucky team was respectable but NOT EVEN CLOSE to the best team in school history.

That was in 1977 when they went 10-1, ranked #6 in the final AP poll and came in to State College and won 24-20.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

This past year’s Kentucky team was respectable but NOT EVEN CLOSE to the best team in school history.

That was in 1977 when they went 10-1, ranked #6 in the final AP poll and came in to State College and won 24-20.

How about the best team in the last 4 decades? I mean that 77 team is pretty damn relevant to his overall point, great job there.

 

[Harrisburg Dave]

James has to begin to at least break even in games against tOSU, Mich, and Mich State. The record against these teams has been awful over the last three years, when James has fielded competitive teams.

If we can say Harbaugh is on the hot seat if he continues his dismal performance against tOSU, we should be able to say the same thing if James goes 1-2 or 0-3 against our three top BIG foes this year.

 

[Harrisburg Dave]

James has to begin to at least break even in games against tOSU, Mich, and Mich State. The record against these teams has been awful over the last three years, when James has fielded competitive teams.

If we can say Harbaugh is on the hot seat if he continues his dismal performance against tOSU, we should be able to say the same thing if James goes 1-2 or 0-3 against our three top BIG foes this year.

James made a huge mistake with his post-game comments after the tOSU game. That statement, and the losses against these people, definitely had an impact on recruiting this year. The progress we saw the past couple years has obviously flattended out this year. Lose these games again and James will have a very tough time keeping things from taking a downturn. Kids only care about what you have done lately.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

James has to begin to at least break even in games against tOSU, Mich, and Mich State. The record against these teams has been awful over the last three years, when James has fielded competitive teams.

If we can say Harbaugh is on the hot seat if he continues his dismal performance against tOSU, we should be able to say the same thing if James goes 1-2 or 0-3 against our three top BIG foes this year.

How many BT titles does JH have? Hell how many wins against OSU? Thanks for playing.

 

[Harrisburg Dave]

How many BT titles does JH have? Hell how many wins against OSU? Thanks for playing.

You have some reading comprehension problems.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

You have some reading comprehension problems.

No, you have just basic comprehension problems. JF has won the B!G, is recruiting well, has been to a BCS bowl game 2 of the last 3 years, and isn't on any hotseat. The program is on really solid ground and you couldn't even imagine that just 5 years ago. Now I understand we have a small percentage of dumb fans who only look at 1-2 games and not the entire picture, so I just try to help them but they seem to stupid to get some very basic points.

 

[Harrisburg Dave]

No, you have just basic comprehension problems. JF has won the B!G, is recruiting well, has been to a BCS bowl game 2 of the last 3 years, and isn't on any hotseat. The program is on really solid ground and you couldn't even imagine that just 5 years ago. Now I understand we have a small percentage of dumb fans who only look at 1-2 games and not the entire picture, so I just try to help them but they seem to stupid to get some very basic points.

Anger issues too. Cool down sport.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

Anger issues too. Cool down sport.

Nothing angry at all in that post. Just information.

 

[Harrisburg Dave]

Nothing angry at all in that post. Just information.

You also have difficulty with judgement.

 

[WDLion]

Hah, exactly. The excuse parade comes out when people comment on JFs tough 4th qtr losses, particularly against Big Three. Funny, how we never talk about close wins. What if we don't block FG against OSU, or can't stop Clements on 4th down..or Juwan drops Iowa TD. Close games that are winnable will define your career and simply commenting that JF has not proven to be great big game coach is simply pointing to facts over last 4 years. Kentucky loss was inexcusable. He must get better. He would probably admit that.

You point to plays made that won games. How about plays that weren't made that resulted in losses. Dropped int right in the bread basket. Make that play and MSU is a win.
Trace throwing a pass after crossing the line when he had a easy 1st down and more deep in OSU territory.. Make that 1st down and OSU doesn't have enough time to come back.

 

[AWS1022]

This past year’s Kentucky team was respectable but NOT EVEN CLOSE to the best team in school history.

That was in 1977 when they went 10-1, ranked #6 in the final AP poll and came in to State College and won 24-20.

Argue about it with a U.K. fan....I live in Kentucky and many of their fans believe this team was their best. I don’t follow Kentucky enough to know, but I talk to a lot of U.K. fans who do follow the program. It still doesn’t change the point that we’re talking about a really good SEC team, not some MAC level crap team.

 

[Raffycorn]

You point to plays made that won games. How about plays that weren't made that resulted in losses. Dropped int right in the bread basket. Make that play and MSU is a win.
Trace throwing a pass after crossing the line when he had a easy 1st down and more deep in OSU territory.. Make that 1st down and OSU doesn't have enough time to come back.

Again, you’re not permitted to consider winning plays that were there to be made but weren’t. You’re also not allowed to consider winning plays that were made in games that we won. The only relevant data point is the number of close games that we lost. In fact, I’ll take that back: winning plays that were made in games that we won (the blocked FG, the fourth down stop, the Johnson touchdown catch) are actually negative marks, too, because if we wouldn’t have made those plays then we certainly would have lost those games. It makes total and complete sense if you don’t think about it at all.