Penn State Football: For Franklin the Challenge Is Straightforward. Don’t Lose to Michigan Two Weeks in a Row

These moments — the ones following a loss — are the most stressful for head coaches. Everything is more or less fine when you’re 5-0. Players are happy, coaches are as happy as they’ll ever be during the season and fans can only complain so much. You might have issues to figure out along the way but everyone is content when the record is unblemished.

But then the bump in the road comes along. That’s when things are tested, that’s when buy-in is tested, commitment, investment, chemistry, bonds and more are pushed to their limits. Everything is good when you’re winning but nobody is happy after a loss.

Which is likely why Penn State coach James Franklin was so steadfast in his support Tuesday of quarterback Sean Clifford and the path that moves the Nittany Lions forward from a 41-17 pounding by No. 5 Michigan this past weekend. Don’t let the same team beat you twice, once on the field and then once again the following week. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. If you need to make changes, you make them, but you don’t do them just for the sake of it.

“I’m not going to look too far ahead,” Franklin said on Tuesday. “Not going to look too far behind. I think there were six undefeated teams that lost last week. Where I probably am concerned about it is, to your point, it’s hard for me to insulate the players and the staff from [outside noise]. What we want to do is, OK, let’s watch the tape, make the corrections. Let’s learn from it, and then let’s move forward and find a way to be 1-0 this week.”

It’s maybe a mistake to judge the general temperature of a fan base based on a subset of people who spend their time on various social media platforms, dedicating no small portion of their online presence to Penn State football. But in any case of the most observable Penn State fans to be found online, quite a lot of them are unhappy about last weekend’s performance. In turn, quite a number of them want to see change, usually in the form of true freshman quarterback Drew Allar.

In these moments it’s worth pointing out that winning right now is the most important thing a college football coach has on his mind. It’s also through this lens that Franklin — like nearly all of his counterparts – base their decisions. That does not make those decisions infallible, but it’s what informs each and every choice.

Because for all of the calls for Allar and all of the shouting for changes here or there, most of them are not really in the favor of optimizing the ability to win the very next game. There is not a whole lot known about Allar at this point, nor is there any indication that losing a game or two more in favor or his development would be in Penn State’s best interest. Nor is there any indication that he is equal to or vastly better than Sean Clifford. Without a star rating and a few good throws to his name, there’s really nothing known about Allar at all. It doesn’t mean calls for Allar are unfounded, but in a world where winning is paramount, there’s no indication playing Allar instead of Sean Clifford aligns with that objective.

And all Franklin, like any coach, cares about is winning and winning now. A challenge in its own right, no matter what a team’s record is or was.

“Winning is hard to do at this level,” Franklin added. “That’s our focus. What I’m trying to do is everything I possibly can to control the Lasch Building and the messages and the vibe that’s in that building so that the Lasch practice fields are the way they need to be. And then Beaver Stadium is the way it needs to be, so then we got a chance for 110,000 or 107,000 fans or whatever it is fans coming out of that stadium Saturday happy.”

For someone who does not often sound the alarm, Franklin making a nod to the fickle nature of a happy football building is a reminder the only thing that really matters to a college football team is the day in front of it and the next game on the schedule. There might be moments down the road when the winds of change might work in conjunction with visions of the future, but as Penn State steps a day closer toward a Saturday night clash at 5-1, the only objective on Franklin’s mind is keeping the ship afloat and headed forward. Because swimming back up from the bottom of the ocean takes a whole lot more effort than sending the ship out to sea once again to face the storms.