If you watched the Sugar Bowl last night, you saw Matt Corral injure his leg in the first quarter of the game. Corral has been one of the top quarterbacks projected to be drafted in this year’s NFL Draft. Hopefully he is okay and the injury does not affect his draft status. His injury became the main piece of evidence for people supporting players opting out of bowl games.
It is crazy how this debate goes: you have people like Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard talking about how the opt outs are hurting college football and making the bowl games less interesting. You have fans screaming that the players are selfish. Then on the other side, you have pro-opt out people screaming back at everyone that these players owe the fans nothing and they need to do what is best for them! Cory Giger was on Twitter yesterday calling Corral an idiot for not opting out and that this decision probably cost him millions of dollars!
Like everything in our country nowadays, these things have to be completely polarized. There is no gray area. If you have a different opinion then you are an awful human. Seriously, I saw a Tweet that basically said the colleges are as evil as slave owners. Yeah, they went to that extreme.
But you know what? You can have a nuanced opinion on this issue. I do think the players should be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want to play in a bowl game. If they are looking at being drafted and are worried about getting hurt, then yeah, they have the right to opt out. Now, if a player does decide to play, they made that decision, so Cory Giger should not be calling them an idiot. They have agency and choice in this issue and we should respect whichever decision they make.
At the same time, fans can be a little sad about players opting out. Screaming that fans are entitled is stupid. Yes, the players do not owe us anything. But that does not mean we cannot wish they would have played or imagined how a game would have been different if they did play. I have seen so many Pitt fans opine about how the game would have went differently with Kenny Pickett and every time the person either has to acknowledge that Pickett made the right decision OR ends up in an argument over the opting out issue. Seriously, you can agree with his decision and still wish he had played.
There is an irony to commentators on ESPN ranting about players opting out when ESPN for the past twenty years has hyped the draft and the importance of where these players rank. The NFL is huge business and ESPN has been a part of making it huge (or fed off the success, however you want to look at it). They are the ones who have made this a huge business and capitalized off these players success. So now the bowl games are not as meaningful and we have players opting out, which dilutes the games even more. That is probably a side discussion for another time though.
Moving on to another subject that drives me crazy: the transfer portal. I have written multiple times about the transfer portal and I do not plan to rehash all of that here. Instead, I just want to focus on one player–Ta’quan Roberson. Yeah, the Penn State backup QB who recently announced he is transferring to UConn. I actually had to leave a few Penn State football groups on Facebook because of the comments from some fans.
“Fuck him, he cost us the Iowa game!”
“What a loser, he won’t do shit at UConn.”
“Not a true Nittany Lion!”
“Hope he gets hurt!”
What is wrong with people? I have no clue what happened in that Iowa game. Did Roberson’s nerves get to him? Was he just unprepared for the moment? We will never really know. It sucks that we lost the game, but I would never wish injury on a kid. I hope he goes to UConn and ends up starting. I hope he does well. I wish every player who decides to go elsewhere the best.
He has Sean Clifford ahead of him, as well as the two big recruits coming in and Christian Veilleux ahead of him on the depth chart. He wants to play, I do not begrudge him for finding an opportunity elsewhere. If he does well (like Will Levis) then that is good for college football. It helps spread the talent around a bit more.
What annoys me the most though? I bet those fans love Arnold Ebiketie (and the other transfers PSU benefited from). Do not be a hypocrite when it comes to this stuff. If you hate Roberson leaving for a chance to play at UConn, then you should be screaming about Ebiketie coming in and stealing the position from someone who was recruited and is a true Nittany Lion.
I would love to know how the majority of these transfers end up. People complain so much about them, but aside from a few big names, I would bet most of them are guys who probably had no chance of getting playing time and now are finding an opportunity. I bet there are tons of players out there who never got a chance and were probably not that far off talent-wise compared to the guys above them. I would imagine they are wishing they could have transferred without sitting out or going down a level for an opportunity to play.
Also, real quick. Roberson was a four star recruit. All the people out there talking about Drew Allar and how great he will be, recruit rankings are meaningful to an extent, but once they walk on campus and start playing…that shit no longer matters. Unless they are some generational freak talent, they will have to grow and improve from day one. Also see Rob Bolden vs. Matt McGloin…
And now comes the fun part of discussing Penn State’s season and their performance in the Outback Bowl. It was obvious to most of us that the game would be tough to win without Jahan Dotson and the five defensive starters who opted out. I can say that the defense played pretty well all things considered. I think they will be just fine next year. I look forward to seeing what Manny Diaz does there. Also, I think Parker Washington will have a huge breakout next year. He along with KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Mitchell Tinsley (the transfer from WKU) should be a dangerous wide receiving group.
The offensive line has to improve. I cannot understand how they are always this bad. Is there a recruiting issue? If so, maybe they need to hire a new o-line coach who can help recruit better players. I will give Mike Yurcich the benefit of the doubt that his offensive plan works better when the run game is working. I also hate second guessing an OC. When a play does not work, everyone wants them fired, but when it does work, then the players get all the credit. But, if the running game is vital to Yurcich’s plan, then it is on him to help fix/figure out the offensive line.
Now, this brings me to James Franklin. I have been thinking about his future quite a bit this season. Was the extension a good idea? I have no clue. It does feel like Penn State negotiated against itself. We were out here thinking USC was going to poach Franklin and they had their sights set much higher. Same with LSU.
I think he is a great recruiter. He also seems to be good at hiring quality assistant coaches and allowing them the opportunity to do their thing. During that great 2016 season, they would always turn it on in the second half and comeback to win. Great that he can make adjustments, but how come he can never be the one to take another team completely off guard? It just feels like his team is always the one reacting. Maybe I am wrong on that one, but that is how it feels.
Here are some James Franklin stats…
PSU Record: 67-34
Bowl Record: 3-4
Big Ten Championships: 1
Record vs. Ranked Opponents: 10-20
Record vs. Top Ten: 2-13
Record vs. 11-20: 7-5
Record vs. 21-25: 1-2
Ohio State: 1-7
Michigan: 3-5
Michigan State: 3-5
There are some striking things in there. Only two wins against top ten teams (2016–#2 Ohio State and #6 Wisconsin). If you take the 2016 season out of there, then they have never defeated a top ten team. They are only 7-17 against the big boys of the Big Ten East. So yes, Franklin’s teams beat up on the bottom feeders: Rutgers (8-0), Maryland (6-2), Indiana (7-1).
You may be wondering how do other teams fare against top ten teams? Well, I did some checking. Since 2014, here are a few teams…
Auburn: 6-19
Pitt: 2-8
Michigan: 3-15
Mississippi State: 6-12
Ohio State: 19-6
Alabama: 21-5
I like to think Auburn and Mississippi State are probably at similar levels as Penn State and Michigan. As you can see though, they at least have a decent amount of wins against top ten teams. And you know what? They have fired coaches during that time period because they were not performing at a high enough level. Pitt has two wins against top ten teams (actually against two #2 teams, crazy, right?). As you can see, Penn State is nowhere near the Alabama or Ohio State level.
I have no clue how the contract is structured for James Franklin. Are we stuck with Franklin for the next ten years? That is not the worst thing in the world. I hope the university commits money to assistants and facilities (will help with recruiting, but also will give Coach Franklin less excuses). I hope that Coach Franklin takes a long look in the mirror and realizes some of the losses have been his fault and he needs to figure out his weaknesses and improve upon them. If he does not do that, then it will be a very long, mediocre decade of Penn State football.
