MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — James Franklin seemed destined to stop the slide.
His skid, to be more specific: 12 consecutive losses to top-five opponents, a miserable eight-year drought.
But the 11th-year Penn State coach was on his way to breaking that streak. He was on his way to ending the losing streak, to silence the critics, to end the conversation.
Here in South Florida, inside Hard Rock Stadium against, of all teams, one of the biggest brands in sports, Franklin’s losing streak seemed over. His team led 10-0 in the second quarter, 24-17 in the fourth quarter and maintained offensive possession in the final seconds of a tied game.
And then, in a nightmare play, their quarterback, Drew Allar, threw one of the most costly interceptions in College Football Playoff history.
The skid continues. Extended streak.
A few seconds after that turnover late in the game, Mitch Jeter’s 41-yard field goal split the uprights to send Notre Dame to the national championship game in Atlanta: 27-24 victors of a rock brawl on a soccer game.
The skid is now 13.
And this one, in the national semifinal, one step away from winning a national title, may be the one that hurts the most.
Then the tears came. The voices broke.
Allar explained his brutal interception. In a tied game with 33 seconds left and at his own 28-yard line, he danced in the pocket. His first reading was covered. Its second reading was covered. And then, off his back foot, he threw a pass toward receiver Omari Evans.
He intended to throw it more at Evans’ feet. Instead, the ball floated into the arms of Notre Dame cornerback Christian Gray.
A choice to lead all teams.
An interception for all ages.
Amazing, game-changing billing, in the original home of the “billing chain” no less.
“I should have thrown it away,” Allar said through tears.
The play is a microcosm of Penn State’s offensive passing game in general. It was a struggle. Allar was attempting to complete his first pass to a wide receiver in the game.
That’s no exaggeration. It’s real. The Nittany Lions, in four quarters of football and 23 pass attempts, did not complete a pass to a wide receiver.
Liam Clifford, Harrison Wallace, Evans, none of them could get enough separation against the Irish’s brutally tight coverage. They were pushed, surpassed.
This wasn’t the first time either. Penn State did not complete a pass to a receiver in a loss to Ohio State in November.
It’s a problem for the program under Franklin’s leadership: There aren’t enough game-changing wide receivers, there isn’t enough speed, there aren’t enough playmakers.
Franklin made no secret of it: “That’s one of the stories of the game,” he said afterward, attributing the problems more to Notre Dame’s press coverage than anything else.
“We tried a couple early on and couldn’t convert them – very contested coverage,” he said.
Allar distributed his 12 completions to three tight ends and two running backs. For catchers, he sometimes missed high and low, threw balls insufficiently and misdirected them. In fact, he threw two interceptions in the end zone, both overturned due to Notre Dame penalties (holding and pass interference).
It’s time to give Allar more weapons on the outside. Just like an NFL franchise spends in the offseason, the Nittany Lions, in this new era of college football revenue sharing, need to spend on wide receivers. Hit the portal. Get out of the checkbook.
That seems to be the plan.
During an interview in November, Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft acknowledged that in this murky NIL era, Ohio State and others had an “advantage.” But, he said, in the impending era of direct compensation, Penn State will go “head to head with them.”
“I think it’s our time,” Kraft told Yahoo Sports at the time.
Penn State was so close, so close, to appearing in the title game.
A few seconds away. A few points less.
And now, in another offseason in State College, the criticism of Franklin’s streak will continue.
They have lost 11 consecutive games against teams named Ohio State (8) and Michigan (3).
That streak against top-five teams dates back to the only win over the Buckeyes in their 11 seasons: a 24-21 victory over No. 2 Ohio State in 2016. The streak also includes a loss to Iowa and the loss at the Big Ten Championship Game to Oregon.
It is one atrocious defeat after another. Of the 13, six have arrived by a single point.
Those close to Franklin describe him as calculating and intelligent, an ultra-competitive person who flirted with other big-name jobs over the years (think USC and Florida State) to leverage them for more resources at Penn State in an effort to compete with the Ohio State and the Michigan State and… Notre Dames.
He is acutely aware of his surroundings, sometimes shaken by headlines and comments directed at him and his program. But their team culture, Happy Valley say, is elite. He cares about his players. He is passionate about off the field: academics, future development, etc.
As his players left the postgame news conference, Franklin stood up to hug them, surrounding running back Nick Singleton and Allar.
“Proud of you,” he told them. “I love you.”
Not long after, Franklin was reminiscing a little about how he had suddenly become the “old man” of college football, the “dinosaur,” as he called himself. He spoke specifically about the evolution of college football and the professionalization of the industry.
He made a long, winding, passionate comment about how, at Penn State, he wants to keep relationships the old-fashioned way. It’s about people, he says. It’s about players.
“We have a retro program with retro uniforms,” he said. “It’s about the guys. I understand that the transfer portal and NIL are part of college football and we will accept those things, but I want this to be more than transactional. “I want it to be transformative.”
He began to shed tears before the press conference moderator saved him from a lump in his throat.
It’s not easy, he said, to get to the press conference after a game like that. It is not easy to talk about such a worrying defeat, about wasting a great advantage.
It’s not easy to talk about that skid.