This ^^^ I recall attending a Pitt/PSU game in the early 80's. The talent levels shown were at least the equal of any team in the country and exceeded most other teams. There is no way that any northern team is getting players like Huge Green and Ricky Jackson to come north to play these days. And the coal country boys from PA that Paterno molded into hard scrabble football players are long gone. The talent balance has shifted south and is not coming back. Only a team with the tradition and built in advantages of tOSU is going to compete successfully for the 5 stars athletes who make a difference. PSU may catch lightening in a bottle here and there but sustained excellence is beyond our reach.
Older alums and fans expect more of PSU
- Thread starter Nits1989
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Why is the expectation of this program to be elite put down by those that try to say oh paterno this or that. The coach with the most wins ever, undefeated teams, nattys or played for nattys and won a ton of over 10 win seasons 11-12 game seasons max, of course we are used to being great!
Elite teams , which is psu and has been for our lifetime, who has top 7 wins all time!!!!! Should be elite and why we can’t be now and again moving forward.
Alabama didn’t sit there and say the bear lost it and should have retired at the last 4-5 years which of course he should have but chose to stay. They went through a bunch of coaches and had brief success, a natty with stallings, were mediocre for 10-15 years before saban who now is considered the best all time and that is over Joe and bear!!
so Franklin can get to the next level of getting us back to “elite”status if he chooses. If not then in about 2-3 years when his buyout is more manageable we say see ya. Until then I hope he does move us forward.
Elite teams , which is psu and has been for our lifetime, who has top 7 wins all time!!!!! Should be elite and why we can’t be now and again moving forward.
Alabama didn’t sit there and say the bear lost it and should have retired at the last 4-5 years which of course he should have but chose to stay. They went through a bunch of coaches and had brief success, a natty with stallings, were mediocre for 10-15 years before saban who now is considered the best all time and that is over Joe and bear!!
so Franklin can get to the next level of getting us back to “elite”status if he chooses. If not then in about 2-3 years when his buyout is more manageable we say see ya. Until then I hope he does move us forward.
Franklin needs to scour the portal this year to get impact players on the OL who are ready to compete. He needs to sell the idea of blocking for a very young backfield full of studs, who only need some BIG & talented men to put them into the playoff mix. Then he needs to beg someone like Munchak to come home and teach these men to become All-Americans.
Just curious - what built-in advantages do you perceive tosu to have over PSU? We have every bit the tradition and resources that they do…urban vs rural campuses aside, what makes them more advantageous in an era when we’re all allowed to pay players?
Do you think Franklin isn't aware of how important it is to get a top QB and is intentionally not recruiting them? Counterpoint: Justin Fields and Drew Allar. This is a ridiculous take, he recruits them, he just hasn't had one on the roster until now.
For the same reason that everyone wants to throat punch Yankees fans who, when faced with current day reality, still yell out "27 championships" to prove how awesome their team supposedly is.
That ****'s in the past. Different era. Meaningless today. Others have covered this ... Paterno was simple, and his teams were simple, in a time when the game was simple. And there was tons of local talent to choose from.
There's a very good reason why PSU stopped being "elite," for the most part, during most of the last 2 decades of JoePa's reign. The game changed ... it got too hard for him. The talent moved elsewhere, as well. You mention Bama's resurgence? Yeah, because they're in the talent heartland, it made that resurgence much easier.
I think, of course, everyone WANTS the program to be elite. The difference comes with one camp pointing to something 40-50 years ago, and acting like that reality should easily be today's reality ... and the other camp understanding that stuff has changed, and regaining that level of success in today's game, in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, is going to be a lightning in a bottle type of situation, and it's not worth getting upset about if it doesn't happen.
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Tell me the name of the back up quarterbacks he has developed...and don't say SC because he didn'tplay till TM left. Not ridiculous you just don't understand. As you have said he now has one and isn't developing him.
Last two decades of paternos reign? We were still elite and great with some down years and a short 2000-2004, 2002 not withstanding. Cruddy years.9- 10 game plus seasons. 1994 we we’re first big ten team to go undefeated in 25 years and first big ten team to ever go 12-0.
2005 and 2008 if there were a playoff psu at 11-1 would have been in and that is a far cry from what we have done the last 10 years.
So yes being elite is a far cry from where we are now but there is no reason we can’t get back on top.
You stated that Franklin doesn't seem to realize the importance of needing a franchise QB and that he isn't copying the other programs that made big leaps with a top QB. I've given you 2 examples of blue chip recruits that Franklin pursued, one of which came to PSU. But by all means move the goal posts to something else when your initial point was immediately disproven.
I said nothing of development and neither did you, initially. To say that Allar hasn't been developed proves that you're completely unreasonable because Allar hasn't played nearly enough for anyone to know anything about him. The coaches that see him in practice are the only ones that know at this point. Factually, we won't know if he's been "developed" until (1) we see significant baseline performance reps from him early in his PSU career and (2) we see significant reps from him later in his career to compare against #1.
Seriously though, Penn State and much of its fanbase seem to be content with moral victories in those games. Never thought that would happen.
I am 70 years old and have been a fan since I was 10. Rip Engle was the coach at the first game I went to. I was at the Sugar Bowl when the team won its first National Championship over Georgia in 1982. There is no bigger Paterno fan than me but the fact is he should have retired 10 to 15 years sooner for the betterment of the program. I checked and the FACTS are that Paterno's winning percentage before PSU joined the Big was 78% and 70% after they joined. Franklin's overall record at PSU is 73-36 which is a 67% winning percentage. However, he was 14-12 in his first two years which were the worst years of the sanctions years. Since then his winning percentage is 71% including the last two lousy seasons. Unlike Franklin, Paterno had no excuse for the "outlier" years you mentioned other than he stayed too long and recruiting suffered because of it during his "twilight" years. I will be happy to stop with the crap if you stop with the excuses.
I am a little bit older than you but get your post. The problem is that 'older' alums see the Paterno era with blue tinted glasses.
I posted yesterday that Paterno era BIG teams averaged 5-3 conference records with losing records vs OSU & Michigan. Things have not really changed that much. Franklin's 2016 - 2019 record with 44 wins was more than any 4 year period during the 1994 - 2011 years.
Have the older alums missed the last 2+ decades? Just asking since apparently you missed from about 97 until recently. PSU wasn't elite in Joe's last decade+ and hasn't been since. They have had a handful of really good teams, but it's not occuring every year. The thing is if you take the foot off the pedal in college football, you fall behind, and it's not easy to catch back up. PSU was asleep at the wheel late in Joe's career and made no effort to keep up with the rest of college football as they passed PSU by.
Joe quit doing in home visits his last decade or so and Franklin does nothing but recruit. But as noted, same results (Joe had an additional B1G Championship, but facts schmacts). Franklin is that one ace recruiter on every staff people think will be a great HC some day.
Joe’s average recruiting class ranking was 32 his last nine years. Including a class ranked in the 90s! Franklin’s classes have averaged 15 and never worse than 25. Should we expect similar results given the disparity in talent? Franklin has had two sanction years and a COVID year (he doesn’t get a pass for last year). He should have still been on contract number three and working for something instead of that ridiculous extension, which is really the center of my frustration with this.
I get the frustration with the extension, but nobody here signed off on that. The fact is Joe let the program decline because he was too good to recruit. He allowed the program to slide more than we really knew and getting back isn't so easy. The recruiting numbers you posted illustrate that perfectly. His own words of them "getting lazy" or him being too big a distraction.
Bama, Uga, and OSU have had all top 5 classes in the last 4 years. OSU missed on one due to a smaller class size, but that is where the separation really is. PSU has had one top 6 class as compared to them. Why people think we are equal or have been is a joke. There is a talent and recruiting gap between those teams and the rest of the country for the most part. The talent those teams have is what people want, we all do, but who is getting PSU there? I'm not saying it has to be JF, but he isn't going anywhere and if he finishes 10-2, people can talk about the only games he cannot win, but I don't see any whales tossing the NIL money that others are. A&M did it last year and while people are jumping up and down that they are failing...those kids are frosh so let's see where they are in 2-3 years.
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Can you find a good OL and have him tribute right away? Seems the OL develops best as a unit and usually takes 2 years or so to develop.
Franklin also had 12 game regular seasons.
Paterno from 1968-1971 had 40 wins with 7 fewer games.
From 1966-1986, in every 4 years, Paterno's teams either went undefeated or played for the MNC.
I think people believe the talent is good or close is because prior to last week, OSU’s average margin of victory against Franklin was 7 points, or one score. The wheels fell off last week with the turnover and points off turnover differential, but we still played them better or even for three quarters.
Well the recruit rankings and draft show that PSU isn't there so what people think and what the reality is are 2 different things. I did a breakdown on this last week and OSU puts more kids in the league, more kids in the first 3 rounds, and more first round picks. I'm not sure why people think we are on the same footing from a talent standpoint. In most years they have better QB's, DL, OL, and WR's year after year. DB's in most years except for this year and last are also WAY in favor of tOSU. The produce a first round CB at least every other year if not sooner.
I'm not saying PSU is super far off, but there is a gap between the top classes and the rest of the nation. They playoffs pretty much prove it every single year. Those 4-5 extra 5 star kids matter and do make a difference in close games. I'm not downplaying that coaching aspect as there is certainly something there too....not discrediting that part of what you're saying.
A city of one million people has a lot of businesses willing to pay NIL money. Columbus is the 12th or 13th largest city in the country. The opportunities for money seeking athletes is endless. tOSU tradition, short term and long term, is elite. Seven Heismans and the favorite to add an 8th. Numerous awards for Nagurski, Outland, Remington, Bednarik etc that exceed PSU in number. And the recent tradition of populating the first round of the NFL draft with studs. They just got an elite DT yesterday that Alabama and Clemson were fighting over. We are not in the battles for these types of kids, even when playing time is clearly available at a position of need.
And with regard to resources, we don't compare to the higher grossing program that is tOSU football.
Two decades is exaggerated, but post ‘96 were more often than not, less than stellar. ‘97-‘99 good solid years were probably most disappointing era of my life.
‘05 was really fun, but far from most difficult schedule.
‘08 was better than originally anticipated, but less than expected once the calendar hit November that year.
‘09 looks like it could be repeated this year except the 2 tough regular season opponents are better this year.
The rest of seasons were solid to bad.
Doesn’t mean Franklin has done better and I haven’t seen one claim that he approached a younger Patrtno’s success. I’m still waiting for a single great season from his team.
You’ve repeated this claim multiple times, but there is zero evidence that supports PSU would have made a 4 team format in ‘08. It doesn’t matter as the Rose Bowl showed they weren’t at a MNC level.
In the end, ‘19 was more successful than ‘08. That leaves ‘05 that had a lot of help from the schedule.
Paterno’s teams noticeably dropped once he turned 70. Bryant was through by that age. Bowden’s FSU teams dropped noticeably once his heavily favored team lost the MNC to OU. We’ll see about Saban.
I agree on the whole, but I don't necessarily believe NFL draft picks is an accurate measure of a college football team's performance (outside of like Bama, Ohio State, and Georgia). Iowa has nearly as many players in the NFL as Penn State for example and almost double what Florida State has, and we're equal or close to Oklahoma. LSU should be in the CFP every year with the number of players they have in the NFL. I just don't buy talent as the excuse when you're losing, on average, by one score to one of the best teams in the country year in, year out. Not just that, but leading into the 4th quarter in many cases.
I don't know who the guy is to get Penn State over the hump, but I'm willing to take the shot, get the buzzy recruiting bump, and go for it. Tennessee was a laughing stock for several years but NIL and a hot coach has turned things around for them. USC will be next.
Not to mention there was no B1G title games in those years. They could have swung it either way, but we'll never know for sure. Bottom line is this myth that PSU has been elite is a mirage. They haven't been since 94 with a couple of decent teams along the way.
There are no moral victories, only results that are expected based upon data points. Jahan Dotson was one of the five best WR's ever at PSU. First round kid. tOSU had two kids drafted ahead of him in last year's draft and will have at least one WR selected in the top 5 picks of the draft this year and probably two in the first round. It is what it is.
I think part of the frustration is the 4th quarter chokes. Twice with 2 score leads. Then last Saturday where, with 9 minutes left, we seemed to go to our Michigan playbook.
Yeah, that’s serious talent. We’ve done a great job with recruiting running backs, but nowadays the WRs have a bigger impact.
There are plenty of first round NFL busts. Also plenty of guys who ball out in college who do nothing in the NFL (like Ryan Broyles). You want the guys that put up numbers in college - not the guys who put up numbers in the combine. Dotson has only played in four games this year and has as many TDs as Olave and Wilson combined (and they've played 14 games total).
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PSU turned the ball over on their half of the field to open up the game TWICE. Fumbled away another one which led to a score IIRC and threw a pick 6 to a DE to close out the game. How PSU was ever in that game is a CREDIT to every other kid that was on the field IMO. People are selling them short, myself included.
Who in the hell beats the #2 team in the nation with 4 turnovers? Hell PSU was leading with under 9 to go somehow in spite of the other 3 turnovers. I get the frustration at the loss, but you simply cannot beat any decent team coughing up the ball like that. That isn't some mystery to anyone on here....we all watch the sport enough to know better. It had very little to do with the playbook as PSU was moving the ball and stopping tOSU.
Perhaps one beats them by not turning the ball over? One would think a 6th year QB would understand the value of a pump fake and not forcing the ball into coverage?
PSU was not still elite ... you just thought they were because we were closer to the period of time when we were elite, so you'd just tack the occasional great season on to the 1980's-stretch and look at that whole as "elite." The reality is, in the 19 years JoePa was the coach of the Big10-affiliated Nittany Lions, there were more legitimately awful seasons than "elite" seasons ... and the rest was a bunch of 2, 3 and 4 loss seasons, which you guys absolutely destroy Franklin for producing. Heck, even the 6 seasons before we joined the Big Ten were bad (according to your supposed objective standards applied to Franklin, and anyone not named JoePa) .... definitely not "elite." That 25-year span at the end of JoePa's tenure was woefully mediocre, at best, with the occasional (as in, like 3, "elite" type seasons).
You guys basically created a fantasy in your mind of how great it used to be, and now you're applying that unreasonable dream to current day reality. Late-60s to mid-80's JoePa-led PSU was a different world than what followed. Basically, you guys are falling victim to the typical out of touch old person syndrome ... "back in my day it was so much better."
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You would think that, but that didn't occur. How or why is beyond most of us at this point in time. I'd take throwing the ball to Allen's feet, but he was trying to beat tOSU on every play instead of managing the game. That is what happens and shouldn't happen to a 6th year guy. He then barked at Allen, but Allen was covered and he was looking directly at it and still threw the ball. Throw it away, punt, and correct the route issue on the sideline...but he forced it and gave up 3 there thanks to a defense that bailed him out all day until it was too late.
THIS. Part of it is fan perception. But part of it is also the change to the playoff format. The latter has completely eroded the value of bowl games in the minds of many, so now it's playoffs or bust. Everything else is deemed a failure. Expansion will help, but the bowl game interest seems like it's never coming back.
ESPN shares some of the blame for that as their talking heads flap their mouths about the playoffs all season long in the middle of other games. While I don't like FOX putting big games at noon and I don't like Gus Johnson's calls, their coverage is so much better. No ticker on the screen (hey ESPN... it's not necessary anymore when everyone has the internet in their pocket). No cutaways for scores of other games. No cutaways to hype up their halftime and postgame shows. FOX just shows the damn game and talks about they game that's on the screen, it's refreshing.
No argument with that. I've thought that after the successful 2005 season would have been the best time to retire.
Another factoid for you Paterno haters.
Paterno's base salary was around $500K which is about $690K in today's dollars. What is Franklins?
Paterno's base salary was around $500K which is about $690K in today's dollars. What is Franklins?
I call bs. 2019 was better than 2008 lol. That usc team was awesome. Who did we play Memphis in 2019? Dear lord. Yes 2005 and 2008 would have been in nice try as we barely lost to iowa only in last second. Why try so hard to marginalize our past. Not sure why you are trying to tear psu down but have at it to make yourself feel better.
This has nothing to do with "hating" Paterno. It's as if some people cannot hear a critical thought about their heros.
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