Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1509432
N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3 2 1 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M State probably came the closest when it went 11-2 and won the Big Ten title in 2016. In the end, though, it got shut out, and so has every other two-loss team that thought it had a case. It was against that backdrop that James Franklin offered an extended dis- course during Penn State's bye week about the sport's unforgiving nature. Franklin had been asked at a midweek press conference about his hope that the Nittany Lions would be able to continue their growth and development with- out having to suffer the kind of defeats that often provide the inspiration for improvement. He responded by noting that veteran players and coaches can help make the sport's cold, hard realities clear to younger players by explaining "how [infrequently] opportunity knocks." "You've got to take advantage when it does," he said. "More than anything, that comes with maturity and experience, not just in football but in life. A lot of times in college football, you lack that. So, you're trying to hammer it home, whether it's academics, whether it's decisions so- cially, and then whether it's the game of football and understanding how precious these games are. "You think about other sports, and they may play 60, 70, 80 games in a season, and you can lose five. In college football, we're guaranteed so few games for a sport that we pour a ton into 365 days a year. So, each opportunity is like gold — each game, each quarter, each play is like gold. You talk about it being a game of inches — it literally is." Seeking A Breakthrough A year ago, Penn State gave up 15,048 inches to Michigan on the ground. It sur- rendered 6,804 inches to Ohio State in the fourth quarter alone. Those inches added up fast. The Lions dropped their game in Ann Arbor 41-17 and collapsed in the final nine minutes of a 44-31 loss to the Buckeyes at Beaver Stadium. This year, the venues are reversed. Penn State is getting set to travel to Columbus to face Ohio State on Oct. 21. Three weeks later, it will play host to Michigan. Time has done nothing to diminish the magnitude of those chal-