Blue White Illustrated

TRUST THE PROCESS Recent losses shouldn't erode optimism about football program's future old, wet and seemingly stunned, James Franklin had a surprising postgame message at Michigan State. Following the Nittany Lions' 27-24 loss in a lightning-delayed, seven-hour marathon of a game, Franklin entered the visitors' media room with a few clear talk- ing points in mind. Just as he had done a week earlier following a 39-38 defeat at Ohio State, Franklin put together a bot- tom-line synopsis of the reasons his team came out on the losing end. A weather delay of 3 hours, 22 minutes was not to blame, he began. After all, both teams had been forced to perform under the same circumstances. Instead, Franklin asserted that Penn State's in- ability to win the field-position and turnover battles was "the story of the game." The Lions had thrown three in- terceptions and lost a possession on downs, and they simply could not get off the field defensively on critical third- and-long situations. Up front and honest, per usual, Franklin credited Michigan State and cited the phases of the game that the Nittany Lions would need to clean up. Then he pivoted to a final, unforeseen point. "We're going to get back to what got us here, which is focusing on being 1-0 and not worrying about anything else what- soever," Franklin said. "You focus on being 1-0 and you achieve that each week, then everything else will take care of itself. I'm going to make sure everybody in our building is crystal clear on that." On the heels of a two-game slide that had brought his team crashing from its No. 2-ranked perch just eight days earlier, the comments, though well-intentioned, betrayed Franklin's essence as a leader. Throughout his tenure at Penn State, he had firmly established himself as a rock of consistency, habitually avoiding the swings in perception that accompany success and failure. But the comments after the Michigan State game had the aroma of an unnecessary reaction. For at its core, Penn State football is not on the verge of impending catastro- phe and is, in fact, on a trajectory toward elite status. And Franklin's original, con- sistent message was what put the Lions on that trajectory in the first place. Back-to-back road losses are in no way an indictment of the methods that lifted the program to national relevancy. That Franklin's team went unbeaten through seven games before dropping a one-point game at Ohio State and a three-point game at Michigan State is proof of its progress. The Lions have one of the na- tion's highest-scoring offenses, as well as one of its most stingy defenses. The two primary indicators of success and failure – points scored and points allowed – are unlikely at this juncture to swing wildly before the season's conclusion. The major deficiency of the 2016 season – slow starts on both sides of the ball – has been wholly reversed. In 600 minutes of football through their first 10 games, the Nittany Lions trailed their opponents for only 34 minutes, 6 seconds. They con- tinue to be among the most explosive of- fensive teams in the country and continue to have one of the top turnover margins in all of college football. Deficiencies exist, no doubt. The team will need to work to fix them as it has done previously, this season and in the longer term. The Nittany Lions must transition from a pure finesse offense into one that can beat a team physically when condi- tions demand it. Finding a way to limit tackles for loss and sacks is imperative. One of the problems this year has been that quarterback Trace McSorley has had difficulty finding running room when the pocket breaks down. On defense, the Lions have lost some of their disruptive capacity due to in- juries up front. Whether or not the manpower exists to reverse that trend before next season remains to be seen, but the issues in Penn State's secondary are a direct reflection of the inability to put pressure on opposing quarterbacks. The Lions will have to address those areas of concern, but their future suc- cesses and failures boil down to flipping an average two-point deficit in road games against the league's best teams. Heading into its game against Nebraska, Penn State had gone 19-5 since the start of the 2016 season. That's impressive, but there are commonalities in those five losses that must change. For one thing, all of the losses took place away from Beaver Stadium; Penn State needs to be able to beat good teams in hostile environments. It also needs to be better in the fourth quarter of close games. Apart from the 49-10 blowout loss at Michigan last year, the Lions' losses have come against oppo- nents with winning records and have been by a combined 10 points. In each of those games – at Pittsburgh, against Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl, at Ohio State and at Michigan State – the team had prime op- portunities to win but ultimately could not finish. As running back Saquon Barkley ex- plained, they're issues that, though unique to each game, can and should be addressed with the same vigor that the team displayed this past off-season in at- tacking last year's slow-starting trend. "The biggest thing that I'd say is we didn't finish. These two weeks, we lost by four points," he said. "We have to find ways to make plays, starting with me and JUDGMENT CALL C

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