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Pete ThamelESPN
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — No program has come closer to breaking through to the College Football Playoff without actually crashing into the field than Penn State, which managed to win the Big Ten and still get shut out back in 2016.
The Nittany Lions have emerged as a curious dichotomy in recent seasons, as they managed to contrast three 11-win seasons in the past six years with an 11-11 two-year dip in 2020 and 2021. With coach James Franklin entering his ninth season, the program has both teased the sport’s highest levels and tumbled to mediocrity, showing the potential in State College and highlighting the flaws.
Last season, Penn State managed to do both. It began 5-0, rose to No. 4 in the rankings and appeared on its way to a convincing win at No. 3 Iowa before quarterback Sean Clifford and star defensive lineman PJ Mustipher suffered injuries.
After the Nittany Lions skidded to six losses in their final eight games, both the school and coach did something unusual during a downturn — they committed to each other long term. In signing a 10-year deal, Franklin staked his bet that Penn State could unlock the school’s potential and Penn State made a sizable commitment on Franklin being the best possible coach to reach it.
“To be that close,” Franklin said, referencing rankings as high as No. 2 in 2017 and playing in three recent New Year’s Six bowls, “you want to finish the job.”
And that leads to the existential question that’s being tackled by Franklin and new athletic director Patrick Kraft. How does Penn State, a strong program, break through as an elite one?
Franklin agreed to his $85 million deal a few months before Kraft’s arrival. Former athletic director Sandy Barbour did admirable work reviving Penn State athletics from the depths of its sexual abuse case, but her leadership didn’t dial in almost exclusively on football the way many modern athletic directors do.
Franklin’s faith in Penn State taking the next step can be tied to the timing of his deal. At the time, the school was operating with an interim president and athletic director, leaving Franklin to make a blind commitment that mirrored the leadership uncertainty when he replaced Bill O’Brien before the 2014 season.
“I sign a 10-year deal once again with not knowing who the president and AD were going to be, which I don’t think there’s too many examples of that,” Franklin said in his office this spring.
The hiring of former Boston College AD Kraft, who worked in lockstep with Matt Rhule at Temple as that program defied historic norms, signified Penn State embracing a football-forward athletic department. Kraft also has clicked with new president Neeli Bendapudi, who arrived in December from Louisville well aware of the power of big-time sports.
Going forward, there are issues that appear destined to be immediately addressed, like Penn State football having its own, specific training table in the football building. (That’s being worked on.)
There are larger issues, such as harnessing the passion that fills Beaver Stadium with 107,000 fans and channeling that into NIL opportunities. Kraft said PSU is “woefully behind” on NIL.
Then there are the issues that often help determine whether a program can stay competitive at the highest level — staff retention, quality of dorms for the players, having higher quality food and the little things that can be difference-makers in a recruiting battle.
“How do we close the gaps?” Franklin asked. “How do we close the gaps on the people that we’re trying to compete with? To go where we want to go, you have to be willing to compete on everything every day.”
There are other areas that need modernizing — mental health, sports performance, nutrition and building out the staff to look more like an SEC program on the sideline.
Just a month into Kraft’s tenure, Franklin has found an eager partner. He points to an administrative streamlining that has allowed him to focus more on football, wear fewer hats and cut through red tape. Franklin’s eyes light up when he mentions that simple requests for the program are greeted with obvious agreement, as he recalls Kraft saying, “‘What are we talking about? Yes.'”
“His energy is infectious, his competitive nature is infectious,” Franklin said of Kraft. “What I’ve seen very early on, some of these battles we maybe hadn’t fought in the past, Pat is fighting. That’s been invaluable.”
Some at Penn State, for how far the program has come under Franklin, have felt uncomfortable declaring that the school is unapologetically all-in. But when Franklin talks about the program “taking the next step,” he has found bosses in total lockstep to find “all those little wins that add up.”
Kraft doesn’t shy away from the program’s potential.
“Unequivocally, we can win a national championship, but it goes much further than bricks and mortar,” Kraft told ESPN. “It’s not just the [physical] building, it’s everything within the program. We’re committed to doing everything we need to do to put us in position to win a national championship.”
After Penn State stumbled down the stretch to finish 7-6 last season, there’s a strong set of empirical evidence that the Nittany Lions could be one of the sport’s bounce-back teams this year.
Penn State’s five regular-season losses came by an average of 4.2 points, and the team enters 2022 with linchpins on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball returning from injuries that derailed last season. Clifford is back for his sixth year at quarterback and Mustipher is one of the top defensive linemen in the Big Ten. Those are difficult positions to replace on the fly, and Penn State sputtered after those injuries hit.
“Let’s be honest,” Franklin said. “I mean, that’s a common denominator of all the great programs. It’s consistent, elite quarterback play.”
For Penn State to push forward, there will be a blend of the old and new. Clifford is a sixth-year senior who is 24 years old and already has started a career as a business owner and entrepreneur. He joked that he could see how “times are changing” when he asked some of the incoming freshmen for their contact information.
“They give me their Snapchat,” he said with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Bro, I need a phone number or email.’ I don’t need a damn Snapchat.”
While Clifford isn’t an elite NFL prospect — perhaps freshman Drew Allar will emerge as that player — he’s a solid quarterback and proven winner. Clifford has made 33 starts and thrown for 7,644 yards. That gives Penn State some stability, especially entering its second year under offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich.
“I think the biggest thing with me is that I sincerely wanted him back, I sincerely know that he can make strides,” Yurcich said. “I really like coaching him and how much value he brings to us.”
Clifford won’t be able to do it alone. The offensive line stood out as the program’s weak link last year, which bogged down a pedestrian stable of tailbacks. Penn State, which finished No. 118 nationally in rushing offense, has brought in a talent influx at tailback and projects to be better on the offensive line.
The run game should receive a jolt from true freshman Nick Singleton, who is the program’s most exciting and talented offensive recruit since Saquon Barkley. Singleton won Gatorade’s national player of the year award as a high school senior, which has led to teammates tagging him with the nickname “Gatorade.”
He’s joined by another talented true freshman, Kaytron Allen, who comes ready to play from IMG and has a body type that earned him the nickname “Fatman.” Some optimism is welcomed after Penn State averaged just 3.2 yards per carry last year and slogged through breathtaking goal-line ineptitude against Illinois in a nine-overtime loss.
Singleton cuts the mold of Adrian Peterson, a blend of power and speed, while Allen is more from the raw power archetype of Le’Veon Bell. Expect them to grow up fast.
“They’re going to be needed, and they’re talented enough to where we don’t have to hope and wish,” Yurcich said. “They’re going to factor into things in the fall. And are physical enough to hold up in protections, too. It’s not like they’re guys that we have to be careful of situationally.”
New Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz worked in media early in his career. So he’s self-aware enough when he slips into the satire of spring ball coachspeak.
“It’s spring [football],” Diaz said, chuckling along at his own predictability, “so here comes your ‘defensive coordinators are gonna be aggressive.'”
Diaz does have a track record of ball-hawking defenses designed to force turnovers, even starting a coast-to-coast trend of performative sideline talismans to celebrate such occurrences. During his tenure as coordinator and head coach at Miami from 2016 to 2021, the Hurricanes ranked in the top 10 in tackles for loss.
“We’ve always been in the top 10 in creating negative plays and tackles for losses, turnovers,” he said.
Diaz inherits a talented unit, and he’s excited about the return of safety Ji’Ayir Brown, who led the nation with six interceptions last season. Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. is one of the program’s top NFL prospects, and the return of Mustipher and defensive end Adisa Isaac, who missed last season with injury, give the Nittany Lions a formidable front.
The loss of defensive coordinator Brent Pry, who became head coach at Virginia Tech, shouldn’t be understated. Few know Franklin better, as their association went back to the mid-1990s, and Pry’s defenses regularly ranked among the saltiest in the sport.
Penn State finished No. 6 in scoring defense last season. But Diaz’s hire promises more of an evolution from Pry’s system rather than a revolution from what he’d done. Franklin points out that Diaz often shared ideas in the offseason with former PSU coordinator Bob Shoop, whom Pry learned under, and appreciated how “like-minded” the philosophies are.
“He hasn’t made it hard on us at all, the adjustment,” Mustipher said. “I think that’s a big thing. When coaches come in, they want to throw a lot at you. He’s not throwing it, he’s keeping it simple for us right now so we can learn and guys can go play football without having to think so much.”
How will it all come together for the Nittany Lions? They play road games at Purdue and Auburn in September, and if they can finagle wins in both of those frothy cauldrons they’ll quickly vault back into the top 5, playoff contention and to the cusp of all the things Franklin stuck around Penn State to achieve.
Penn State travels to Michigan and hosts Ohio State in October for what should be marquee games that also will be measuring sticks for where the program stands in the division, league and national title chase.
The Nittany Lions are amid an elite recruiting haul, as they rank No. 5 in the country with half of their 18 commitments in the ESPN 300. That comes on the heels of a class ranked No. 6 nationally last season, a sign that the Nittany Lions are in the midst of stacking classes in a manner that will help them compete consistently for the College Football Playoff.
To take that final step, Franklin often mentions how important alignment is in a program. He sees this upcoming season as the first time in his tenure the alignment is truly there and the program is on course to having the support match the expectations. Penn State’s athletic department is being run with the idea that it will tackle all the details necessary to close the gap and compete for a national title.
“We’ve made some really good strides, we’ve done some really good things, especially if you keep it in the context of where the program was when we got here,” Franklin said. “But for us to take the next step, we can’t take the approach that any of these areas are OK not to compete in.”