Northwestern 22, Penn State 21
James Franklin cut his post-game presser uncharacteristically short. No “we lost this battle”, “we won that battle”, “we did this”, “we didn’t do that.” He took full responsibility for the loss, said we need to get to work tomorrow, then corrected himself and said “tonight, even.” And then, the bombshell: Drew Allar’s injury was season-ending. After someone asked whether staying at Penn State would be the best move for his career, he muttered something about being there for the players, then left.
This was more than a disappointment. It was unthinkable. Even my most cynical readers believed Penn State would easily handle Northwestern, as did I. We were all wrong. The state of this team is even worse than we all thought it was.
I keep asking what the hell happened. Pre-season #2, spending $750 million on stadium upgrades, playoff expectations — hell, national championship aspirations — the sky was going to be the limit. And then, the roof caved in, and Chicken Little was redeemed. The sky has fallen.
The Homecoming crowd was somewhat muted, somewhat bemused, and somewhat hostile. The returning alumni sure as hell did not expect to see such a flawed, half-ass performance from their former conquering heroes. They blame James Franklin, as well they should.
But let’s not get into “anybody but Franklin” mode, lest we wind up with Paul Chryst or worse. I just thought I’d throw that in.
Mistake after mistake piled up to doom Penn State in the game. At Homecoming, for Pete’s sake. This is the product you show off for your returning alumni? At one point, I remarked that the Nittany Lions looked like a high school team. Defense? Where? No pass rush, no stopping the run. Offense? The only thing that changed was Kaytron Allen got more carries than Nick Singleton. The vaunted, big bucks wide receivers? Nada.
A Game of Self-Destruction
Penn State didn’t just lose this game — they gift-wrapped it, tied a bow on top, and handed it to the Wildcats.
Andy Kotelnicki’s offense finally made the long-overdue shift, featuring Kaytron Allen as the primary back. He responded with 16 carries for 90 yards and a touchdown, running with decisiveness and power. Nick Singleton, demoted to RB2, managed 7 for 20 and a short TD, but again looked tentative. For a brief, shining stretch in the first half, the ground game clicked.
Then, as we submliminally feared, it all unraveled.
The Moment Everything Broke
The defining moment came late in the fourth quarter. Down by one, needing a miracle, Drew Allar tried to convert yet another third-and-long. Receivers weren’t open — nobody was. So Allar did what leaders do: he tucked it and ran, improvising, trying to will the offense forward on sheer guts, because he runs like a duck.
He broke one tackle, lowered his shoulder for the line to gain — and got folded awkwardly under two defenders. The stadium went dead silent as Allar stayed down, clutching his leg.
Moments later, they carted him off. Season over.
Say what you want about Allar’s regression this season, but he left it all on that play. It was one of the few moments in the game that looked like Penn State football — heart, effort, desperation — until it wasn’t.
Enter the Grunk
And thus begins the Ethan Grunkemeyer era, ready or not. The redshirt freshman, thrust into action cold, showed composure but no magic. How could he? Franklin’s habit of keeping the backups bubble-wrapped in “learning mode” all season leaves them ill-prepared when reality comes knocking. Grunkemeyer inherits not just an offense in disarray but a locker room teetering on the edge of disbelief.
Franklin’s Postgame Playlist
The coach’s presser hit all the familiar notes — accountability without clarity.
“This one’s on me,” said Franklin.
“We’ve got to clean up the details.”
“Kaytron was very productive early.”
Translation: We had no idea what we were doing after halftime.
Discipline, once a program hallmark, has evaporated. Leadership looks tentative. The vaunted recruiting classes are still waiting to be coached into something cohesive.
The Road Ahead: Grim and Grimmer
Next up: Iowa in Kinnick Stadium, where good teams go to die. Then a bye week (likely the only thing Franklin can’t lose). Then Ohio State in Columbus, followed by Indiana at home — the same Indiana that just beat Oregon and looks like the Big Ten’s second-best team behind OSU.
If the current pattern holds, Penn State could easily limp into the Moo U. game on November 15 at 3–6, with bowl eligibility anything but assured.
The only thing more consistent than this team’s inconsistency is its ability to find new and creative ways to disappoint.
At this point, the Kohler Toilet Bowl looks less like a joke and more like an impossible dream.
When I recover enough to write a preview of the forthcoming Kinnick Stadium prime-time loss, I will do so.
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K. John says
I’ll start by saying that I am not nearly as surprised as most. I picked us to go 9-3 preseason and thought we could go as far as 7-5. I am still shocked by the speed of the downfall. I have a few thoughts beginning with coaching.
Franklin is and always has been a poor game coach. Not mediocre. Poor. Furthermore, he has a vision for how he wants to win that conflicts with the reality of what his roster looks like. Furthermore still, we have several position coaches who have been subpar for years. Nevermind the system coordinators who have turned 2/3rds of the roster in square pegs in round holes. It isn’t just the quarterbacks as is commonly thought, it is the entirety of the front seven, the offensive line and the quarterbacks.
Franklin jumped the shark hiring Andy K, a coach that never one coached a single game with a pro-style QB. We have an entire position group filled with them. He uses a variant of the wide zone running scheme Mike Y ran with much futility. It got a little better last year but that was mostly a function of the poor competition we faced on a weekly basis and a new set of gimmicks, which predictably are not longer effective. Franklin really jumped the shark by hiring Knowles, whose system takes three years to install. Furthermore, the system requires specific talent and intense discipline which we don’t have.
Now, onto the talent. We don’t have very much of it. We have gotten by with easy schedules and a handful of supremely talented players the last few years. All of that is gone. On offense, we are on par with Iowa and Nebraska, Defensively, there are some pieces but overall, this is the least talented front seven in memory while the secondary is fairly average.
Bottom line, there are lots of reasons they are losing. A perfect storm really. Franklin continues to make stupid decisions with hiring. He favors recruiting at the expense of player development. He has given up trying to build a championship team and is now trying to buy one. I would imagine this gets much worse before it gets better and the next coach will inherit a depleted roster because the talent level overall is fairly low. Next year, we will be far closer to Northwestern than people think.
The Nittany Turkey says
Although much of this is now moot with Franklin’s termination, your last sentence resonates with me, although its condescenscion is typical K.John.
PSU will lose some cornerstone talent after this season, if not when the transfer portal opens, which will relegate the program to “Rebuilding Mode” for the foreseeable future. Unless the new coaching hire possesses superhuman recruiting talent and the NIL money pot increases commensurately, we’ll likely need to work with reduced expectations.
Fans typically think things can be fixed with the wave of a wand. Bring in Matt Rhule, and he’ll fix everything. Anybody must be better than Franklin. But the real world does not run on sports fans’ binary logic. The perfect head coach does not exist, and whoever gets the job will be subject to human frailty. The honeymoon will be short, and fans will be on the new guy’s ass quicker than you can say “Charlie Weis”.
I’m not looking for a miraculous transformation. I was never one of those assholes who think that anything short of national championships (still somewhat mythical) in three out of five years is unacceptable and a firable offense. A solid, uninflated Top Ten finish is good enough for me. I hope to see a couple more in my lifetime.
—TNT