Penn State Sunday situation: After another loss to Ohio State, what now for the Lions?

Columbus, Ohio — A scene all too familiar to Penn State and its fans played out again on Saturday at Ohio State. The Buckeyes took a knee to run the clock out. The Lions sadly walked off the field, frustrated by another loss to this Big Ten East power. Then, head coach James Franklin spoke to reporters to share what went wrong, in his mind. Like usual, the list was fairly evident to anyone who watched. He credited Ohio State. Players took accountability for the latest setback to the scarlet and gray. They vowed to learn from their mistakes and be better moving forward.

It’s a repetitive song and dance, one that is performed nearly year in and year out.

Penn State has now lost to Ohio State nine times in the last decade. It has suffered seven straight defeats at the hands of the Buckeyes. This year’s upset bid was spoiled not by a defense that failed to get a stop but by an offense that could only be stopped. Through three quarters, the Lions had a paltry 186 yards and were 0 of 10 on third down. They’d finish with 240 and 1 for 16, respectively. Little went right for the attack on a day that featured quarterback Drew Allar’s worst career game. He said silly mistakes must be corrected and that focusing on the little things will make the bigger things better. Is he wrong? Not generally speaking. But will it matter? That’s all that matters.

“We had our chances, we battled, and we weren’t able to capitalize,” Franklin said. “Big picture things, I’ll be happy to talk about that at some point. Right now, I want to know about, we lost to a really good football team on the road. Didn’t make enough plays when we needed it.”

What’s next for Penn State?

There has been one time since 2012 when this Sunday column did not need to focus on how Penn State can fix what ailed it in the latest loss to Ohio State. The Lions are awesome defensively. A weak schedule leading into this game made some question that. But Manny Diaz’s unit was and is terrific. The special teams are much improved from week one to now, as well. Those units did mostly everything right, minus the Daequan Hardy punt return gaffe. Still, his emergence in that role can and will mean better things for the Lions on the aggregate down the road.

But, an offense that was propped up on a buffet of garbage time points and weak opponents was exposed on Saturday when it faced a road test against a top 10 team. The Lions could do little right. An attack that thrived on ball control and running mostly when it wanted to throughout a 6-0 start averaged just 1.9 yards per carry. Allar and his receivers, long a concern for this team, again failed to be on the same page consistently in yet another game. The passing attack is problematic and there aren’t enough playmakers to fix it now. Could that sink the season? We saw Saturday that it could. And there is simply no easy fix.

Will this year provide a different song and dance?

Penn State did not lose out on its College Football Playoff dreams yet. A loss to Michigan in a few weeks would extinguish those. It’s accurate to say that the Lions will be favorites in every other remaining game and should win each of them. But, it won’t matter if they don’t upset Michigan at home.

Can they do that? Sure. Anything is possible on any given Saturday. But, it’s hard to envision it doing so in this moment in time. And what Penn State does between now and then is the only way to change that negative likelihood for this program into a positive triumph.

“We got to take [Sunday] to get better,” Allar said. “We can only control what we can control. At the end of the day, we have to go out and do what we did the first six weeks. Obviously, today was not good enough at all. But, if we attack each week and don’t lose faith in each other, we can still be in the position we want to be at the end of the year as well.”

It’s a message Penn State fans have heard before, especially after this game. It will only matter, though, if it leads to different results down the road.

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