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to work with their student-athletes via Zoom. But while the sta6 changes may have added to Penn State's di7culties, the necessity of working remotely was a condition that every college coaching sta6 in the country had to deal with this year because of the pandemic. Even when Franklin was asked essentially that exact question following Penn State's 39-24 win over Michigan State, he rec- ognized that was the case. "Typically, you have a traditional training camp and you learn a little bit about your team," he said. "Then you play the 5rst couple of games of the sea- son and you learn a little bit more, and you start to 5gure out your identity: We're going to be a coverage team or we're going to be a pressure team. We're going to be able to [do] tempo or throw the ball or run the ball. Or we're weak in this area, so we're going to play to our strengths right now." Those types of questions are usually answered in spring practice, summer workouts and preseason camp. The ab- sence of any organized team activities for much of the year hampered Penn State and every other team that played this fall. That's why we've seen so many wild and unexpected performances through- out the football season. Only the peren- nial elites – Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State – and a handful of rare exceptions like Notre Dame have managed to create some sense of normalcy in 2020. It's not surprising that this year's top teams have been the ones that are stocked with 5ve- and high-four-star athletes. Those teams are better equipped to handle the abnormalities that the coronavirus presented, and they were able to live up to their expectations, which included the expectation that they will contend for the College Foot- ball Playo6 on an annual basis. Before all the drama surrounding the season's postponement and its subse- quent reinstatement, I believed that Penn State had put itself in position to cope with the hardships that the pan- demic was sure to create. But my presea- son expectations were predicated on the availability of Parsons, Freiermuth, Brown and Cain. Losing four of the 5ve most talented players on the roster es- sentially took the Lions' championship hopes o6 the table. Those losses created a situation in which Penn State needed to very quickly change its plans on o6ense and defense, and it needed to make those changes without the bene5t of a bye week or two built into the season. Penn State's o6ensive game plan had been to use Brown, Cain, Ford, Keyvone Lee and Caziah Holmes in a power inside zone running game to establish its supe- riority at the line of scrimmage. That would help an inexperienced pass of- fense grow as the season advanced, with the ultimate goal being to develop a bal- anced o6ensive attack. When Brown was forced to stop play- ing football because of his health situa- tion and Cain was lost on the 5rst o6ensive series of the opening game against Indiana, Penn State found itself in a position in which it didn't have a back5eld that was capable of running the o6ensive philosophy it had designed in the o6-season. Instead, it had a back5eld comprised of Ford and two freshmen running backs. The coaching sta6 didn't know what its remaing running backs were ca- pable of executing, and the questions at that position group were compounded by the uncertainty elsewhere on the 5eld. With the exception of Jahan Dot- son, the wide receiver corps was still 5nding its way at the Football Bowl Sub- division level. On defense, the system was built with Parsons as the centerpiece of what Penn State wanted to do on the 5eld, particu- larly with the front seven. Those two problems were almost un- solvable. With a shortened preseason camp and no bye weeks during the regu- lar season, the sta6 didn't have su7- cient time to redesign its o6ensive and defensive philosophies to the extent that was necessary for the team to have a le- gitimate chance of winning a Big Ten East Division title. That said, it wasn't inevitable that Penn State was going to open its season with 5ve consecutive losses. Victories over Michigan, Rutgers and Michigan State to close out the regular season made it abundantly clear that the Lions had the talent to be competitive, even a8er all their personnel setbacks. There will no doubt be lots of postsea- son discussion among players and coaches about what went wrong, how it could have been averted and how to pre- vent it from happening again. In the months to come, the sta6 will have plenty to work to do to re-establish this team as Ohio State's No. 1 rival for the 2021 Big Ten championship. ■ MAJOR LOSS One of Penn State's costliest personnel losses this year occurred on opening day when Cain went down with a sea- son-ending injury in the first quarter against Indiana. Photo courtesy of Penn State Ath- letics

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