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James Franklin does the unthinkable

Week 6 was a friendly reminder that no matter how bad you think the CFB slate is, you should never get dragged into going apple picking, furniture shopping, or anything else ridiculous. If you weren’t glued to your TV, you missed a lot.

The biggest headline was the most devastating losses in the sport’s history. Penn State failed to bounce back from its loss to Oregon, falling to a calamitous team in UCLA, 42-37. They lost to a program that shuffled their coaching staff midweek and suffered multiple losses to Group of 5 teams.

The national conversation has been dominated by many asking if Penn State head coach James Franklin would ever accomplish beating top teams in college football. It was a fair assertion to state that Franklin can only beat up on the back end of the Big Ten to pad his overall record. Well, apparently, Franklin wasn’t going to let us be right about that.

Our Kyle Crabbs dug into Franklin following the perplexing upset to UCLA.

“It’s unacceptable, particularly for a program with national championship aspirations. Those big picture goals may already be out the window, especially with big bad Ohio State looming on the schedule. We all know how those games have gone under James Franklin.” —Kyle Crabbs

Many words could be used to describe the loss to UCLA, but unacceptable feels perfect. Losing to Oregon the previous week was understandable, but frustrating. There was plenty of time for Penn State to recover as they prepare for Ohio State in a few weeks. College football teams are allowed to improve and get better, but now it really doesn’t matter.

Crabbs continued by holding nothing back in his criticism of Franklin, who attempted to make multiple useless excuses to define the game.

“This was avoidable. The Bruins deserve credit for coming out after a coaching change and playing loose and inspired. They’re clearly a more talented team than their 0-4 record indicated. But Franklin once called this Penn State team the ‘best combined personnel’ of his tenure. To lose this game is appalling. To credit the travel and injuries is even more so. And it makes it very easy to identify where this Penn State team is currently stuck.” —Kyle Crabbs

The question that Penn State and college football fans are asking is whether Penn State will fire Franklin. In a vacuum, losing to a team as bad as UCLA in a year when you had one of the most talented rosters in college football is grounds for firing. However, because his current contract runs through 2031 and includes a $50 million buyout, it seems very unlikely.

This all depends entirely on Franklin, not the decision-makers at Penn State. There are currently two paths laid ahead of him. Does he decide to stay to collect the check and finish out the contract, hoping he gets the next round of coordinator hires right? Or does he recognize that he’s hit his ceiling in Happy Valley and aspire to head to a program with similar resources as Penn State?

This coaching cycle will be loaded with multiple valuable openings, such as Arkansas and Virginia Tech, with the potential for Auburn and Florida to open up soon. Dominoes will likely open up other top programs if a coach like Lane Kiffin were to relocate. It’s not unrealistic for Franklin to depart like Brian Kelly and Lincoln Riley did from their top brands in 2022.

Texas’s troubling season reaches a new low

The preseason #1 team in college football is now unranked, just seven weeks into the season. Following their loss to a one-win Florida team, Texas is on the outside looking in at the College Football Playoff picture. How does a team with so much potential fall this far? That’s a question that might take hours, days, or even weeks to dissect.

The leading cause that many turn to is quarterback Arch Manning struggling to live up to the lofty expectations that were placed on him before he was given a chance to prove himself. While Manning hasn’t performed well, it’s too easy and lazy to direct all the blame at the kid. This level of finger-pointing seems only to exacerbate the situation.

Our Zach Berry discussed after the loss why the Longhorns’ problems aren’t all related to Manning.

“Manning finished 16-of-29 for 263 yards and two touchdowns. But, he also had two costly interceptions. This type of quarterback play is not going to get it done in the SEC. Especially when the always reliable Texas defense is getting gashed like it did Saturday … There weren’t many positives in this one, but Manning did do some nice things in the passing game when he had time to deliver the football. Those times were not happening a lot, though.” —Zach Berry

Manning was sacked six times against the Gators, and that doesn’t even truly illustrate how little time he had to throw. Texas’s offensive line is having serious issues protecting Manning and opening lanes in the run game. Currently, it does not appear that this unit is sufficient for the Longhorns even to be considered in the playoff conversation.

The path forward for Texas is shrouded in a thick fog of uncertainty. How do you fix a poor offensive line midseason, entering the challenging portion of your schedule? How do you boost the run game when you can’t pave rushing lanes? How do you get your rattled quarterback to calm down in the midst of all this?

Texas can rebound, just like Florida did against them. But for this year to be more than a nine-win season seems extremely unlikely.

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Penn State and James Franklin make history in absolute worst way possible in embarrassing loss to UCLA Bruins and Nico Iamaleava

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