It's time for Penn State to break through. Can the Nittany Lions finally solve Ohio State?
Thirteen. Nine. Thirteen. Eleven. One. One. The close margins of defeat in No. 6 Penn State’s last six meetings with No. 3 Ohio State support what coach James Franklin has been saying for years: that the Nittany Lions are on the goal line of a national breakthrough.
Beating the Buckeyes once was enough to breathe life into Franklin’s program back in 2016, when a 24-21 win on the heels of his 18-14 start gave Franklin an early blue ribbon and proclaimed Penn State's rediscovered relevance.
"I know the games have been close in recent history, coming down to the fourth quarter when one team kind of pulls away or the other," Ohio State wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. said. "But I think for the goals we're trying to accomplish as a team, make it to the Big Ten championship, Penn State's definitely one of those teams that year in year out you have to go through."
The inability to defeat the Buckeyes again represents the larger story of the Franklin era: close, but not quite. For seven seasons, Penn State has been one of the top programs in the Bowl Subdivision but never better than the second-best program in the Big Ten.
Five years ago, after a 27-26 loss at home to the Buckeyes, Franklin spoke of how Penn State was a "great program" but Ohio State was an "elite" one. “I give you my word,” he said. “We are going to find a way to take the next step. We’re done being great.”
You could say that this evolution has been much more difficult to pull off than expected. Heading into Saturday, the Nittany Lions are still on the hunt for this sort of marquee moment while the Buckeyes remain one of college football's gold standards.
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But this may be Franklin’s best team yet. So far, this looks like coach Ryan Day’s most flawed Ohio State team. The Buckeyes are a "tremendous challenge," Franklin said. He then added: "Also, tremendous opportunity."
It's one of the most obvious make-or-break games of the regular season. A win in Columbus would exorcise years of road nightmares against the Buckeyes, vouch for the way Franklin has built this program and catapult Penn State next to Georgia and Michigan as the best teams in college football. With the powerhouse Wolverines still ahead — and Franklin has lost six of nine in that series — a loss would likely doom the Nittany Lions to another year of good but not good enough.
"They're a great team. They're a great program. They have great tradition," said quarterback Drew Allar, who played in high school in Ohio just over 100 miles from Columbus. "At the end of the day, we all came to Penn State to play in games like this. They went to Ohio State to play in games like this as well."
From Penn State's perspective, Saturday provides the chance to catch the Buckeyes during a moment of recalibration. The offense has struggled, relatively speaking, during the transition from quarterback C.J. Stroud to Kyle McCord; the Buckeyes have not been effective running the football against Power Five competition and are less explosive than in the recent past. Instead, Ohio State has leaned on a statistically improved defense that ranks second nationally in yards allowed per play.
Penn State's group ranks even higher. It has allowed just 48 points through six games, including a 31-0 shutout of Iowa, and leads the country in yards allowed per game (193.7), first downs allowed (67), sacks per game (4.5) and opposing red-zone attempts (seven). The Nittany Lions also have a 13-game streak of scoring 30 or more points, the longest active stretch in the FBS, and enter Saturday having won 11 games in a row by at least 14 points for the first time in program history.
"We have to play our best football on Saturday," Day said.
But the Nittany Lions will have to win at Ohio State, something the program has done only twice since joining the Big Ten in 1994. Since Urban Meyer's arrival with the Buckeyes in 2012, just one meeting in Columbus has been decided by a single possession. On the other hand, Ohio State will have to avoid another sluggish start, a theme through the first half of the season, against an opponent that has given up just one touchdown in the first quarter and outscored opponents 87-0 in the third.
"Starting fast, winning that first five minutes of the third quarter will be critical," said Day.
There is one great unknown around this game: Is Penn State really this good? The game control and margin of victory say yes; the quality of competition plants a seed of doubt. The Nittany Lions have beat four Power Five opponents: West Virginia, Illinois, Iowa and Northwestern. The offense has averaged more than 4.9 yards per play in just one of these games, the opener against the Mountaineers. Overall, the team ranks 61st nationally in yards per play against Power Five competition.
Allar has done a good job avoiding turnovers and resembled the sort of first-year starter who could develop into an all-conference or even All-America selection at some point in the next two or three years. But he's been uneven at times since a three-touchdown game against West Virginia, while the offense as a whole has created just 16 plays of 30 or more yards, tied for the second-fewest in the Power Five.
This has created a healthy dose of skepticism about the Nittany Lions' chances against the Buckeyes and, down the road, the Wolverines. But that's as much a reflection on the past than the present: Penn State hasn't won this game in seven years, so why should this season be any different?
The matchup gives Penn State a chance to rewrite the narrative that has defined the Franklin era. Five years after Franklin promised the program would take that next step, the Nittany Lions have an opportunity to do just that — or be dismissed once again as a championship contender. All that stands in the way are the Buckeyes.
"We've played these guys for a long time," said Franklin. "Probably up to the last two years, probably played them as well as anybody in the conference. But we’ve got to find a way to be able to win in the fourth quarter and win these one-possession games."
