STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Have you ever heard the sharp crack of white gold against polished wood?
When the giant-sized championship ring affixed on Pat Kraft’s right ring finger meets the conference room table before him, the sound is unmistakable. Crack!
It is the sound of success, the sound of investment, of tradition, of history. Crack! Crack!
The melody Kraft unintentionally creates on this Wednesday afternoon from his athletic director office, tucked in the shadow of Beaver Stadium, is a reminder of Penn State’s latest national title. In March, Nittany Lions wrestling won the school’s 90th team championship in its illustrious history — believed to be the most by a school east of the Mississippi River.
And yet, outside of Kraft’s office window, through the autumn foliage and against a blue-splashed fall sky, a gargantuan structure of steel and concrete rises from the Pennsylvania hills as a reminder of something else: Here, football is king, and it has not delivered a ring in 38 years.
“I get it,” says Kraft, entering his third year as athletic director. “We all sign up for it. We all come to Penn State to win national championships. I know (James Franklin) doesn’t run away from it. I sure don’t. It’s why I came here and why we’re investing. You don’t come to Penn State to be mediocre.
“Michigan won the national championship last year. Ohio State has been in that mix,” he continues. “I think it’s our time.”
For years behind in facilities and trailing in NIL compensation to athletes, Penn State’s leaders believe it has caught up to the elites off the field. It operates from a refurbished football facility, has at its disposal a brand-new dining hall, spectacular weight room and a team of sports performance chefs, academic advisers and mental health specialists. Its budget for name, image and likeness (NIL) payments — uncompetitive two years ago — is now very much competitive.
On the field, coach James Franklin is in his 11th season and making $8.5 million a year. He’s averaged nine victories per year, has won a conference championship (2016) and has finished inside the top 10 four times.
There is but one thing missing from the résumé.
On Saturday, arriving into this town is the gorilla that has, for years, been draped on the backs of those in power here — a scarlet-and-gray nuisance, the curse from Columbus. The Ohio State Buckeyes not only serve as a barometer to forecast a season but they have quite literally, for more than a decade now, been the hurdle between Penn State and that elusive prize.
Ohio State has won 15 of the last 18 in the series, 11 of the last 12 and seven straight. Franklin is 1-9 against them.
“Nick Saban has changed the way we look at football coaches,” said Brandon Short, a Penn State board of trustees member who starred with the Nittany Lions in the late 1990s and played seven years in the NFL. “You can win a national championship once every decade and still be a good program. We have 10-win seasons, but we need to get over the hump. That’s why we are investing in the program.”
Saturday represents that hump. While Ohio State may hold the most talented roster in the country, was the preseason Big Ten favorite, and is perhaps the top contender to win it all, the fourth-ranked Buckeyes (6-1) have problems. For one, they will be without two starting tackles on an offensive line that’s shown signs of weakness.
Their defensive secondary was exposed in a top-five matchup earlier this season at Oregon and their offense struggled in a home game last week against Nebraska.
Is this the year that Penn State, maybe Franklin’s most complete team of his tenure, gets the Buckeyes?
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The buzz here in State College is palpable. ESPN’s “College GameDay” is here, and so is Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff.” The setting is expected to be a quintessential Big Ten fall masterpiece. The sweeping hills of this place are a seasonal melody of red, yellow and orange. The high on Saturday is a crisp 56 degrees. And kickoff is at high noon.
Big game, right? Franklin attempts to quiet the buzz, his comments indicative of a coach who has plastered throughout his facility signs that read “1-0.”
“West Virginia to open the season was a big game. Bowling Green was a big game. If you don’t think it wasn’t, lose to Bowling Green and see how people react,” he said Wednesday. “This is a big game because of how we’ve handled the previous six. We don’t change our process. I can’t control the noise and things outside our building.”
No matter how much Franklin attempts to engrain his “1-0” mantra, no matter how many times he quips that “they are all big games,” this one is different — even his players believe so. Some have imagined the thrills of a victory Saturday.
“It would be a special feeling that I haven’t felt yet,” says Dvon J-Thomas, PSU’s sixth-year defensive lineman.
Edge rusher Abdul Carter totes the company line — “just another nameless, faceless opponent,” he said — until he doesn’t. “We are a little amped up to get this win,” Carter adds. “We let it slip away [last year].”
For some, the skid against Ohio State is easily explained. They’ve had more resources and money, so they’ve been more talented.
“Ohio State had an operating budget that was $12 million more than Penn State,” Short said. “They were spending $12 million more. We’ve always done more with less, but it’s unfair to ask a staff to do that. We’ve been working on closing that gap. We are seeing results on the field.”
The true test, on the field, comes Saturday. It’s not only about Ohio State. Franklin can snap a different kind of streak.
He’s not beaten a team named Ohio State or Michigan since 2020 — a streak of six consecutive losses. On the flip side, Franklin hasn’t lost to any other team in the regular season over the last three seasons.
“He really does put every ounce of himself into this program,” Kraft says.
“He has worked his ass off at a place that isn’t particularly easy and certainly is not easy for him,” says a former Penn State staff member who spent years around Franklin in State College.
Those close to Franklin describe him as calculated and smart, an ultra-competitive person who flirted with other big-brand jobs over the years — think USC and Florida State — to leverage them for more resources here in an effort to compete with the Ohio States and the Michigans.
He’s very much aware of his surroundings, at times rattled by headlines and comments directed at him and his program. But his team’s culture, those here say, is elite. He cares about his players. He’s passionate about them away from the field — academics, future development.
“I am proud of the man he is and the leader he is of the program,” Short said. “It is a family. That is not lip service.”
All of this said, in an industry proven to be transient and impatient, 11 years is a long time at one place.
Coaches, even those like Franklin, who average 9-10 wins a year, get fired or retire with too many losses to their rivals. Take for instance, former LSU coach Les Miles, who was fired during his 12th season while on a five-game losing streak to Alabama. Or ex-Georgia coach Mark Richt, pushed out in 2015 with a record of 5-10 against Florida. And what about Lloyd Carr, who retired after his 13th season at Michigan having lost six of seven to the Buckeyes?
Kraft points toward Ohio State’s NIL efforts — the school is spending a reported $20 million on its football roster — when discussing the recent skid. He acknowledges that Penn State’s NIL budget is not $20 million. But it’s better than it once was. And soon, schools will be permitted to share revenue directly with athletes in a capped system that is expected to bring more balance.
“We were literally nowhere [with NIL] when I got here,” Kraft said. “I think we’re in a really good position now. I think that’s where Ohio State and people we compete with had a leg up. They did good things and were aggressive early.
“We are at the point now where we know we can go toe to toe with them.”
On Saturday, within a sold-out Beaver Stadium, can the Nittany Lions crack the skid? A win means better positioning to advance to the Big Ten championship, which provides a path to a bye in the expanded College Football Playoff, which, in turn, sets up the program to get within three wins of that elusive prize: a ring.
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