James Franklin Will Never Beat the Allegations

That was an unbelievable fourth quarter. Either one of Notre Dame or Penn State could have easily taken this game to secure a spot in the College Football Playoff National Championship. But once again, it was James Franklin's team which found itself on the wrong side of the final score in the biggest game of the season and biggest of Franklin's tenure in Happy Valley.

The Nittany Lions took a 24-17 lead with 7:55 to go after a controversial pass interference call bailed them out and gave them the ball inside the 10-yard line. They ran just five plays in the remainder of the game, a three-and-out followed by one of the worst interceptions you're ever going to see on their final drive of the game.

PSU's defense gave up the tying touchdown immediately after taking the lead and there wasn't a ton it could do to prevent the game-winning field goal once Drew Allar handed Notre Dame the ball with 33 seconds left.

When the lights got brightest, Franklin's team folded.

Now let me say that I think some of the talk surrounding Franklin is unwarranted as he's an outstanding football coach. He won nine games in back-to-back seasons at Vanderbilt, which I'm not sure any more than five coaches in the country could manage to do. And he's won 10 or more games in six of the last eight full seasons at Penn State. He's been objectively excellent by any reasonable standard. But at some point, it's impossible to ignore the fact that seemingly every time the Nittany Lions play an opponent of equal or greater caliber, it's the other team that comes out on top.

It would be insane to have any talk of firing Franklin or anything like that, but I can imagine the frustrations of Penn State fans after seeing this happen time after time. The two CFP games he won this year were against teams Penn State should have dispatched easily, so it's hard to even enjoy those in light of what happened once again when it was time to take on a team that was a slight favorite over the Nittany Lions. I really don't know what you do.

Maybe this is just what James Franklin is. And to be clear, the overwhelming majority of fans in the country would do unfathomable things to be in Penn State's shoes every year, especially now that the Franklin Special is probably going to have the Nittany Lions in the CFP field more often than not. You just have to keep taking shots and hope one hits at some point, I guess.

And again, maybe we're talking about Franklin finally getting over the hump and being one win away from a national title if Allar doesn't make an unbelievably horrible decision. But at some point, all these losses have to be someone's fault.

Only eight months until Penn State begins its next quest for an 11-win regular season with a loss to Ohio State followed by a loss in the Playoff to the first team it plays with a pulse.