SB Nation thinks Penn State is the next Clemson
Your just proving my original comment (Salty) Winning 24 games AT Vanderbilt is god damn impressive. He also turned around that PSU program a lot faster when they were under sanctions faster than anyone thought. As for your OC comment who says he hasn't found the next great guy, he obviously knows how to find coaches at this point. He's done a better job than JH at this point (No i wouldn't want to trade places before you even ask) getting to a big ten championship. Arm punt or not he has been recruiting well and knows what players he wants to run his program.
He did win at Vandy, which is tough; but its not like he was winning in the SEC West. The SEC East had a post-Meyer Florida, the shambles of Tennessee, and a cant quite get to the top Georgia - the rest of that division sucked. To go 8-4 just meant beating bad Florida & Tennessee teams and losing your crossover games, not exactly world beating.
Also, he has not done better than Michigan at this point. In his first 2 years at PSU he went 7-6; then he broke out with an 11-3 where he lost by 40 to Michigan. Harbaugh was significantly better in his first 2 years before a step back that many saw coming (not to the extent we saw, but still expected based on youth).
Franklin struck gold with Moorhead and it will be tough to replicate and seems to be good at picking assistants, but he hardly has the track record with assistants that Harbaugh does or the winning past that Harbaugh does at other places (Stanford is also not easy to win at).
That kind of winning at Vandy is always amazing, regardless of the relative strength of the SEC East. It's freakin Vandy people.
And sorry but he absolutely has done better than Harbaugh SO FAR. Harbaugh's winning percentage is 71.8%. Franklin's is 68.2%. Almost identical, but Franklin has also beaten OSU and has made it to Indy and won at Indy.
How can you say that a coach who has won the B1G championship and who has beaten our biggest rival, when we've done neither of those things, hasn't accomplished more than we have? I mean gosh, Franklin won the B1G championship in his THIRD SEASON while turning Penn St around after massive sanctions. So he literally walked into a worse situation and has, to date, won at a higher level than we have. Sorry but when we've been beat, we should own up to it. And he has us beat so far in accomplishments.
71% and 68% are nowhere near “almost identical” when you play 12 games per year. The difference of winning/losing even 1 game is a big deal in college football, unlike basketball or baseball.
But 3% of a 12 game football season is not even close to even one game per season. It's just one third of one football game. That's pretty close to negligible.
Also, lol at massive sanctions at PSU. What are these massive sanctions you speak of?
Franklin beat OSU at home, at night, due to a blocked FG - if the call goes the other way in '16 then UM goes to Indy. In that case is Franklin an ass clown and Harbaugh a genius? Your entire basis of Franklin being better than Harbaugh is due to a 50/50 call that didn't go our way vs. a blocked FG returned for touchdown that did go PSU's way - I think thats a pretty hot take. Also, Harbaugh beat Franklin's B1G championship winning team by 40! On the field, against each other, Franklin gave up and kicked a FG.
You are also over blowing the sanctions PSU received. They were basically taken away after 1 year of Franklin - its despicable that it happened that way but the NCAA is the NCAA.
Overall, Franklin is 36-17 in 4 years - Harbaugh is 28-11 in 3 years. A good year in 2018 and Harbaugh will be significantly ahead of Franklin in winning games (10-3 would put Harbaugh at 73% through 4 years - 38-14); a couple bounces our way and we could easily win the conference. Those are bounces that went PSU's way in 2016 (when Michigan was clearly a better team).
My assertion was that Franklin was ahead of Harbaugh in accomplishments, with a very similar, almost the same winning percentage. Yes I do believe that a win over OSU and a conference title are worth more than total number of wins, especially when those total win numbers don't ever come against rivals, let alone in Indy.
Okay, so let's follow this through to conclusion: You said the sanctions were basically removed after Franklin's 1st year. So that means that starting in year 2 of his tenure, Franklin finally had the chance to start fully rebuilding the program. Yet somehow he goes and wins the conference the year after the sanctions are lifted. People act like that's a worthless accomplishment and doesn't mean anything, yet they trumpet our own losing record to rivals and in bowl games as fully justified due to being in a 5 year rebuild.
So it takes Harbaugh 5 years to rebuild a program that merely underachieved because of Brady Hoke's inability to coach, despite having zero sanctions and loading up on good recruiting classes. But when Franklin wins the conference title 1 year after sanctions are lifted (and presumably in year 2 of a 5 year rebuild, cause that's how long it takes right?) everyone dumps on the man and says he can't coach and his accomplishments don't mean anything compared to our own? Sorry that just doesn't sit square with me.
I did not say it takes 5 years to rebuild or that I don't think Franklin has done a good job, I also am not throwing his championship in the trash. I mainly want to establish that your argument of Franklin being better is based on 2 coin flip plays. If those plays are opposite, then there is no argument here.
The difference is razor thin between the two and if we get one more bounce in 2016, then there is no argument. Luck played a big factor in PSU's championship in 2016, that doesn't mean they weren't a good team or didn't earn it. It also doesn't mean that PSU is the next Clemson or that Franklin is better than Harbaugh.
I also never said that Franklin was "better" than Harbaugh. What I said was that his accomplishments are better.
Call it coin flip or whatever you like, the fact is it happened and they won! It’s a results based business at the end of the day. I always wonder why we think others get so lucky, yet that same luck never happens to us.
Maybe we have a skewed perception of Penn St because even Brady Hoke’s awful 2014 team was able to beat them (and Michigan is 3-1 against Franklin), but it’s hard to see them making a sustainable ascent in the near future. Can Penn St regularly beat Ohio St, in addition to turning it around against Michigan and not getting tripped up by MSU? That’s a lot of hurdles to clear every year. They’ll win the division sometimes, but it would take a seismic shift within the division for them to be at Clemson’s level.
Here is how the BIG East power four teams (UM, MSU, OSU, and MSU) have recently fared against each other. I've only looked at Jim Harbaugh's three seasons.
UM
2-1 vs. PSU
1-2 vs. MSU
0-3 vs. OSU
Overall 3-6
PSU
1-2 vs. UM
1-2 vs. MSU
1-2 vs. OSU
Overall 3-6
MSU
2-1 vs. PSU
2-1 vs. UM
1-2 vs. OSU
Overall 5-4
OSU
2-1 vs. PSU
2-1 vs. MSU
3-0 vs. UM
Overall 7-2
I think we should be concerned if WE can regularly beat Ohio St at this point before we start criticizing Penn St's ability to do so.
I wasn’t criticizing Penn St’s efforts in that series. I’m just saying they’re a lot further away from becoming Clemson than that article suggests. Penn St got the lucky bounce against Ohio St to get a win that Michigan didn’t get, and that’s the only thing making a Penn St comparison to Clemson less ridiculous than a Michigan comparison to Clemson.
Injuries are part of the game but Wisconsin was decimated by injuries in that Big 10 championship game. Everytime I tuned in to check the score I watched a Wisconsin player being helped from the field.
With all due respect, Franklin/PSU earned those wins but not all wins are equal. Not to mention M beat both participants of the championship game.
Also, I find Franklin's post game comments to be extremely self-centered as if the opponent is comprised of living human beings. If Franklin continues with the success then I will have to give him his due but so far, I don't see much depth to his success.
Excuse me, as if the opponent were NOT real people.
This has been a surprisingly insightful comment section. I was sort of expecting, "no way," "consider the source," "West Pennsyltucky sucks! East Pennsyltucky rules!" etc. Folks are backing up their opinions with real analysis. Well done all.
I’m reserving judgment on Franklin until I see what his teams can do without Saquon Barkley, a generational RB, and Joe Moorhead, who literally saved Franklin’s job, running the show.
Are you reserving judgement on Harbaugh considering he had a generational QB at Stanford?
I’d bet they drop to an 8ish win season this year and lose a fair bit of program momentum.
Will be interesting to see what Franklin does without Saquon and Moorhead. I tend to think that looks more like Franklin pre-those guys than the last two years but the talent level is higher now.
In College Football, recruiting at a high level is a key factor to success. Coaching is very important but I think that average coaching combined with stellar recruiting will make a program at least good and above average.
I don't think there will be a lot of fall off for PSU. Coaches like Meyer, Saban, and Harbaugh lose coaches all the time. if a coach has a framework philosophy to work with, coaches should be very plug and play.
PSU is a dangerous team and will be for years to come; this next year will be critical for that momentum.
The big question for Franklin moving forward is whether his attack will not skip a beat sans Moorhead, who’s now the head coach at Mississippi State.
I am kind of intrigued to see if this is the case too. Moorehead's offense was....something.
As absurd as this sounds, I have to bring up a couple points:
1. It wasn't long ago that Clemson wasn't a highly respected program. The joke was about "Clemsoning" their way to failure. Now, Clemson is a top tier program.
2. For PSU to be in the same sentence as Clemson is a huge accomplishment. Is it premature? Yes, very premature. But considering the dumpster fire the program was in after Joe Pa, I give my hats off to them.
The football program never was a total dumpster fire in terms of on the field production. They always had decent talent. The 1st year after Paterno, O'Brien went 8-4 and then 7-5 before leaving for the NFL. Franklin then went 7-6 and 7-6 before two nice seasons. 7-6 isn't good, but it is a "winning" season and it isn't 3-9 either.
All in all, PSU hasn't had a losing season since way back in 2004...they never hit rock bottom on the field as so many people say they did.
PSU never hit rock bottom on the field because they hired two solid HC's after the Paterno scandal -- O'Brien and Franklin. Two smart decisions.
"But considering the dumpster fire the program was in after Joe Pa"
Which arguably should've been even more of a dumpster fire if the NCAA didn't go easy on them with the punishment
I used to love seeing a good "Clemsoning". It was one of the most predictable schadenfreude events of the mid-to-late 2000s and early 2010s. Dabo snuffed that out entirely a few years ago. Very sad
Yeah, back in the good old days, with a side of "Sparty no!" Good times, really miss 'em.
Since the 49-10 thrashing in 2016, Michigan is 14-8, and PSU is 20-3.
James Franklin is a Golden God.
I really feel like people needs to hold off on the Penn State hype train until we see how this years team performs. People seem to forget that PSU went 7-6 Franklin's first 2 years at Penn St, then went 11-3 and 11-2 coinciding with the arrival of Joe Moorehead and the emergence of Saquon Barkley. Not to mention PSU loses their top 2 receiving targets (not including Barkley), so you have a PSU offense that is a shell of it's former self
A shell of its former self is a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?
And yes, Penn State's offense, pre-Moorehead wasn't great. BUT, the entire scheme has 100% changed now. They're running that sort of spread that OSU and Clemson run. So I wonder if it's more of a question of scheme and less of coaching personnel. If they continue to run the same offense, with the same RPOs and what not, then I wouldn't expect to see any sort of drastic difference. Sure losing Barkely will always hurt a little, but they've been recruiting pretty well and Barkely was only a 4* prospect and the 13th best RB in his class. It's not like he was some 5* phenom that they somehow snagged up. If they can get that kind of production out of Barkely, why can't they produce similar results with other recruits?
The reason the comparison to Clemson is being is because PSU looks like it's on the exact same path as Clemson.
Dabo took over as HC mid-season when the old coach resigned/was fired. So he simply had to finish out the year.
Once Dabo actually started his first full season as HC, it only took him three years to win his conference championship. James Franklin also won his conference championship in year three. Since Dabo's third full season as HC, he has never won fewer than 10 games. SO FAR, Franklin has posted back to back 11 win seasons. Obviously this isn't a guarantee of future 10+ win seasons, but all of this PLUS the fact that both teams run very similar style offenses (and these offenses are clearly the king of the game right now), I see how it's very easy to compare PSU as the next Clemson. The trend line is literally almost identical at this point.
Where Barkley was drafted is proof that his physical tools were much better than that of a 4 star. In aggregate, recruiting rankings matter, but Barkley is a perfect example of an individual who was badly underrated coming out of high school
"Sure losing Barkely will always hurt a little, but they've been recruiting pretty well and Barkely was only a 4* prospect and the 13th best RB in his class. It's not like he was some 5* phenom that they somehow snagged up. If they can get that kind of production out of Barkely, why can't they produce similar results with other recruits?"
Barkley is a generational college RB that just went 2nd overall in the NFL draft. I'm baffled that anyone thinks that just because they have a 5* back up RB that he will magically replace Barkley without an issue
Franklin is a good guy, good recruiter so the players like him. That team did well last year because of Moorhead and Barkley. With those 2 gone along with others on offense, that unit will not be the same. How quickly we forget how that team has struggled when they shouldn't offensively and against weaker teams.
As for Harbaugh, this blog has discussed in the past how the roster construction impacted the team on the field. No, it's not the only reason this team lost games, but it does have an impact. Last years team was victim to a shaky oline and terrible qb play. Despite that they were in the thick of it. I doubt Fanklin and PSU with a backup or third string qb wins as many games as they did last year.
Psu had a pretty shaky oline and a 3 Star sophomore qb who was expected to go to wake forest and was a first year starter when they beat osu and won the big ten. Brandon peters last year had more time in the system than mcsorley. The excuses people make about the roster are extremely frustrating. The oline was a disaster because of failed coaching and recruiting by drevno, both bama and osu have started freshman on their olines. The lack of qb progression is on recruiting and coaching by harbaugh as all of the elite teams have won championships with qbs less experienced than peters. Youth is part of college football. If you can’t win with youth you won’t win consistently
One of the big differences though is scheme.
Clemson, OSU, PSU, etc. they all run a similar version of the spread with a lot of RPOs and have mobile QBs.
We run a very complicated, difficult to learn and master, requires years of experience offense. So these other teams can just plug in athletes and get instant production on the field whereas our system requires several years before significant production can be expected.
This is what I try to explain and people just don't want to hear it.
I'm really hoping that Harbaugh's comment about wanting to use more RPOs is serious.
I don't like our ancient, takes years to learn offense. I feel that it puts us at a constant disadvantage to our opponents because while we might have a great team once ever 3 years, they are fielding great teams virtually EVERY year. As soon as our upperclassmen leave, it's back to square 1 again until the replacements figure out what they're supposed to be doing.
Plus a high power offense is just flat out more exciting to watch.
I feel like we could take some serious steps forward if we would modernize the offense along the lines of the rest of the college football world. I'd rather be able to see young guys contribute every year then have to play the "they need more 2-3 years under their belt first" game.
I've always contended that Dan Antonio had a valid point in the smart ass comment he made after last year's game that UM ran 84 different offensive sets. The offense was probably far too complex for any college team and especially so for one so young.
What comment was that?
Of course youth is a part of college football. We are talking about 18-22 year olds. But not all wins and losses are equal. Teams have histories and coaching schemes work better against different opponents. It's how it is.
As far as recruiting goes and the impact it had on the roster, go back through this blog and you will see a very clear explanation of how that impacted the roster. Also using Alabama as an example is silly. Their recruiting is unparalleled. For every 5* freshman that succeeds there are 5 that don't pan out with them.
I'd rather have Harbaugh. I really would have loved to see Franklin coach last years offense without Moorehead. As far as X's and O's and who would I rather have for the long haul, we have him. Stop complaining. It could be worse. Or have you forgotten?
Donlt act like they manhandled OSU. They got beaten in every facet of the game except the score. It was an absolute fluke that they won that game. They were outgained by 100 yards, and all PSU did was hang around.
Correct.
But they still made the plays when they needed to most. More than we can say for the past ?14? years....
Not True. Penn State manhandled Ohio state's offensive line. They had 11 tackles for loss and 6 sacks. Ohio State had one sack. Ohio State had the ball at the end of the game with a chance to drive and win or tie. Penn State devoured Isaiah prince and stopped them cold. (Multiple sacks)
Also, Ohio State had more special teams luck than PSU. Ohio State blocked a field goal, recovered a muffed punt, and got a free safety when Penn States long snapper threw the ball over the punter''s head and out the end zone. They had three huge special teams plays; Penn State had two.
Michigan is all talk and consistently finds ways to underachieve. The latest example is Devin Bush running his mouth on the Twitter. Getting a win at Notre Dame at night would be a step in the right direction.
Here we go again... MSU creating an artificial chip on their shoulder. You do know that this was something initiated by MSU? It was MSU who trolled Devin Bush and not the other way around. I swear, even in victory MSU fans are so damn butt hurt over Michigan.
This is a telling year for Franklin...they have lots of talent but what can they do without Barkley scaring the living shit out of every team.
I dont think they are the next Clemson but I think they are here to stay...going to be a dog fight every year with PSU, OSU, MSU and M.
Clemson is elite, PSU is solid solid squad but Im not ready to say Clemson level yet. If they win the B1G East this year...ya Ill get on that thought process.
B1G east is the hardest division in the nation this year IMO
I personally think people are using all the extra outside things that Michigan is doing against us. I think others schools are spinning it as our school is all business and Michigan is distracted etc:
just my take
PSU has historically been a pretty good program, and they make some solid arguments here that they'll stay good. But Franklin was legitimately on the hot seat before Moorhead came along, and he's still not a particularly good in-game coach. So I'd like to see how he does this year with significant turnover on offense and on staff before we crown him and his team a title contender