GLENDALE, ARIZ. — Penn State is in The Final Four. Hold on, Nittany Lion basketball fans. Mike has hoops on a pretty successful Rhoades, but we’re talking football here.
And, The Road to No. 1.
Around Happy Valley, that’s a term popularized decades ago by the late great Ridge Riley in his Penn State football history book of the same name. The subtitle is “a personal chronicle of Penn State football.”
And, for generations and legions of Nittany Lion fans, Penn State football is very personal. Especially these days.
You can see it by the nearly full house of 106,013 who showed up on short notice for the first postseason White Out in Beaver Stadium history. And you could see it here Tuesday night, when Nittany Lion fans showed up en masse in State Farm Stadium, loud, wearing white and proud.
Boise State may have had a slight advantage of in-stadium fans. But you have to figure that the Penn State faithful have already been challenged financially and logistically by: a.) Heading unexpectedly — at the drop of an Ohio State loss to Michigan — to Indianapolis for the Big Ten title game; and b.) The conundrum of holding off to a potential trip to Miami for the Jan. 9 Orange Bowl; and c.) The holiday season. On The Road to No. 1, Penn State fans are also cheering with their pocketbooks.
“I get it,” as James Franklin likes to say. And, in this regard, the Penn State head coach does. Three sentences into his postgame comments after his team defeated third-seeded Bose State, 31-14, on New Year’s Eve in the Fiesta Bowl here in State Farm Stadium, he acknowledged as much.
“I want to thank the fans,” said Franklin. “It’s a long season. And our fans, the support that we get, how they travel, is phenomenal. Obviously, also good being on the West Coast, and maybe some of our fans that don’t normally get a chance to see us live. That’s special. “
A long season indeed. And in deed. When the Nittany Lions take the field next Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. in Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Lakes, Fla. — a scant 2,400 miles from Phoenix — vs. the winner of the Notre Dame-Georgia CFP quarterfinal game, the 2024 college football season will have gone through three seasons (summer, fall, winter) since the opener way back on Aug. 31 in Morgantown, West Virginia, where they beat the Mountaineers, 34-12.
Check out the score. The eerie symmetry with the final tally vs. Boise State is pretty stunning. And testimony to Franklin’s 1-0 approach. The 2024 college football season is like no other, and in some ways it is tailor-made for Franklin’s favorite mantra. The idea of 1-0 is to focus on the task, the week, the opponent at hand. And, at 13-2 and with only one-score losses to Oregon and Ohio State — assuredly two of the Top 8 or Top 6 or Top 4 or Top 2 teams in all of college football — Penn State has approached its business with a maturity and discipline that belies the years of the mostly 18- to 22-year-olds that populate its roster.
TEST AFTER TEST AFTER…
“In terms of being tested, yeah… I’ve been a head coach in the SEC. I’ve been a head coach in the Big Ten,” Franklin said postgame. “I’ve got tremendous respect for both conferences. I think I have a perspective that most people don’t have, right? But I think the Big Ten has prepared our guys. We opened the season at West Virginia. Had a tough Big Ten season. Had to overcome adversity and challenges from the top to the bottom of the conference. I think those things are valuable.”
Speaking of adversity, Penn State’s defense played a big chunk of its game vs. Boise State and its stud running back Ashton Jeanty (held to 104 yards on 30 carries) without its All-American edge rusher, Abdul Carter.
On ESPN’s College GameDay on Wednesday morning, Franklin said of Carter: “Abdul is going to do everything in his power to try to get back” for the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9. “If he’s able to go, I know he’ll go.”
The 2024 season, however successful, has already been a grind. By Jan. 9, it will be 131 days since that West Virginia game — the longest PSU football season, calendar-wise, in the program’s 135-year history. (The 1996 season lasted 129 days.) And 339 days since the official start of winter workouts on Feb. 5. How long ago was that? Penn State had three new coordinators that day and a Swiss Army knife backup QB that is no longer with the team.
Now, Penn State is definitely, certifiably one of the Top 4 teams in college football. No doubt. And if they win in the Orange Bowl, they will be playing for the national championship for the first time since Jan. 2, 1987 — back in the Fiesta Bowl, when they beat Miami (Fla.), 14-10. That was 13,898 days ago. Gas cost 90 cents a gallon. Remarkably, 15 games into the 2024 season, the Nittany Lions do not seem gassed.
Since Penn State’s last No. 1, there have been 17 different Associated Press national champions. Those 17: Alabama (6), Miami (4), Florida (3), Florida State (3), LSU (3), Clemson (2), Georgia (2), Michigan (2), Nebraska (2), Ohio State (2), Auburn, Colorado, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, USC. Plenty of college football bluebloods, but no Blue & White.
In fact, the last time the Nittany Lions were ranked No. 1 at all was Oct. 18, 1997 — the day they beat, 16-15, unranked Minnesota in Beaver Stadium. That was 9,910 days ago.
Not to jump too far ahead — and I’m not really, with just two more games for PSU, at most — but should the Nittany Lions win in Miami, advance to the College Football Playoff championship game on Jan. 20 in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta — and win — it would be an incredible road back to No. 1.
SERVED UP ON AN HISTORIC ROLL
Over the past three seasons, Penn State is 34-7 under Franklin, one of its finest stretches ever. If PSU reaches the ultimate destination — a No. 1 ranking and a national title and a $1 million bonus for Franklin — their 36-7 run will rank right up there with the 31-5 run of 1980-82 and the 23-1 streak of 1985-86. Both culminated with a national championship.
Obstacles remain. Big ones. Either Notre Dame (12-1) and Georgia (11-2) is up next. Both are formidable foes.
The Fighting Irish (12-1) have lost only once, back in Week 2, against North Illinois, 16-14. They have since reeled off 11 consecutive victories. Georgia is 12-2, with road losses at Alabama (41-34) and at Ole Miss (28-10). But, they have beaten Texas twice in 2024 —in the regular season in Austin, when the Longhorns were No. 1, by a score of 30-15, and again in the SEC championship game in Atlanta, 22-19 in overtime, when the Longhorns were No. 2. The Bulldogs are sans longtime starting QB Carson Beck, but I like their new starter, Gunner Stockton. Great name, high school legend, drives a beat-up pick-up.
The last time Penn State played Notre Dame was back in 2007, a 31-10 early-season win for the Nittany Lions at Beaver Stadium. Penn State has played Georgia only two times: In the 1983 Sugar Bowl to win the national title, 27-23, and in the 2015 TaxSlayer Bowl which Georgia won 24-17 under an interim head coach. Kirby Smart arrived in Athens the next season.
A win in the semifinals, and Penn State would likely play Texas, Ohio State or Oregon in the CFP title game. None are from the Mountain West.
Of the eight teams that made it to the quarterfinal round of the CFP, Franklin — at age 52, his goatee is getting much grayer since he was named Penn State’s head coach on Jan, 11, 2014 — is the oldest head coach. And no doubt he has been through the biggest challenges to reach that group, and now the Final Four, of all the head coaches. The Sandusky scandal seems, in most ways, eons ago. Now, Penn State is spending $700 million to renovate Beaver Stadium and the Nittany Lions are at a blue (and white) blood level that was last truly the case back in 1994. Props to CJF. He has been relentless.
Until Tuesday night here in Arizona, the high-water mark of the Franklin Era had been the Big Ten title in 2016, part of a miraculous nine-game winning streak. And yes, the Grant Haley scoop-and-score against No. 2 Ohio State was a miracle. There was also the two-week stretch in 2017, when Penn State was ranked No. 2 with Trace & Saquon, when they beat Michigan and then lost to Ohio State. Again.
Should they win in the Orange Bowl, the Nittany Lions could very well meet their old Buckeye nemesis again in the national title game. Or, perhaps, Oregon. A victory against either would be a true redemption story of “30 For 30” proportions. Not just for the 2024 season, but for a football program that is back at new — and too long ago familiar — heights.
