As he thinks back on what went wrong in a devastating 27-24 Orange Bowl loss, coach James Franklin must face an even more painful reality: He'll never have a better chance of winning a national championship than he just did.
This was the year and this was the team for Franklin and his Penn State program to prove the doubters wrong, to extinguish the derisive "Big Game James" nickname once and for all. Led by Abdul Carter, Tyler Warren and Nicholas Singleton, Franklin compiled enough elite talent to make a real run at finally breaking through that ceiling.
It couldn't have broken any better for Penn State this season. The Nittany Lions didn't win their hardest regular season game (Ohio State) but still received an especially favorable College Football Playoff path. As the No. 6 seed, Penn State hosted No. 11 SMU inside Beaver Stadium for a chance to play No. 3 seed Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. From the moment the CFP bracket was revealed, Penn State felt as close to a lock to make the semifinals as any of the 12 teams in the playoffs.
After taking care of SMU and Boise State, Penn State got an Orange Bowl berth against a Notre Dame hampered with injuries to multiple key contributors. The Fighting Irish opened as a slight 1.5-point favorite but by kickoff, Penn State had closed as the favorite. In the first half, the Nittany Lions looked dominant against a seemingly physically overmatched Fighting Irish squad.
What transpired in the second half will be a hard pill to swallow for years to come. The early 10-0 lead. The 24-17 lead with less than eight minutes left in the game. The decision to be aggressive with less than a minute remaining and overtime looming only for quarterback Drew Allar to throw a backbreaking interception to set up Notre Dame's game-winning field goal.
Franklin has a reputation for turtling in the biggest moments, and that was on full display inside Hard Rock Stadium. He's always won the games he should and loses the games that are up in the air as evident in a gruesome 1-15 record against Associated Press top 5 teams as PSU's coach (1-18 overall).
What that speaks to is Franklin is a capable coach when he has a talent advantage but doesn't have the X's and O's and game management chops to overcome a team that looks better on paper. That doesn't even really apply against a beat-up Notre Dame team that PSU should have beaten but has largely played true to form against Ohio State and Michigan over the years. There is zero reason to ever have confidence that Franklin can string together enough right decisions in a game to beat the nation's best teams.
The concerning part is Franklin, long an elite recruiter, isn't signing as much elite talent these days.
Franklin and his staff absolutely nailed a 2022 recruiting and transfer class that included Carter, Singleton, Allar, Kaytron Allen and Dani Dennis-Sutton, among others like transfer Chop Robinson, a first-round draft pick in 2024. Even three-star quarterback Beau Pribula looks like a great find in that class though he has since transferred to Missouri because Allar is expected to return to State College. Pribula will likely be the starter in Missouri and for as good as Allar was at moments in 2024, Pribula might have been the better QB option if you think Franklin's offense works best with a Trace McSorley-type.
Since that 2022 class that ranked No. 8 in the country in Overall Rank (recruits plus transfers), according to 247Sports, Franklin has signed the nation's No. 14 (2023), No. 15 (2024) and currently, the No. 20 (2025) classes. Penn State hasn't particularly excelled at the transfer portal, either, with last year's No. 56 transfer class headlined by Ohio State receiver Julian Fleming, who never panned out as expected. No receiver this season did, really, and that reared its head in the incomprehensible stat of not a single receiver catching a pass against Notre Dame on Thursday night. Penn State signed nine WRs in its last three high school recruiting classes. In that three-season span, Omari Evans has 30 catches, Kaden Saunders has eight and the other seven have four catches combined
Penn State's Recruiting Slide?
| Year | National Overall Class Rank |
|---|---|
| 2022 | No. 8 |
| 2023 | No. 15 |
| 2024 | No. 14 |
| 2025 | No. 20 |
Penn State has three transfers committed thus far in the 2025 class, including two three-star receivers. Their transfer haul (No. 77 currently) is dragging down a recruiting haul that ranked No. 15 nationally. (If the math is getting fuzzy, remember that the transfer and recruiting classes combine into the overall for the metric we're using).
As we noted when the CFP field got down to eight teams, Penn State is a notch or two below Big Ten heavyweights like Ohio State and Oregon when it comes to NIL. It has worked hard behind the scenes to try to close the gap, but it doesn't have the same financial firepower as the upper echelon programs right now.
"Penn State, we need the masses and the scale to [compete at the highest level]," Jen Ferrang, general manager of Penn State NIL collective Happy Valley United, recently told Sports Business Journal. "Because we don't have a Phil Knight. We don't have the Tysons. We don't have Dave Portnoy. We don't have Larry Ellison."
As serious money has flooded into the market as programs double dip with NIL and potential revenue share money, Penn State has largely stayed on the sidelines. Penn State needs to be far more aggressive in portal shopping to avoid a significant talent drop-off with Carter, Warren and Singleton all expected to leave for the NFL. Penn State isn't recruiting at an elite enough level in the high school ranks to justify largely ignoring the transfer portal.
With a 2025 schedule that includes Oregon, Ohio State and Indiana, Penn State will likely be a two or three-loss team with a chance to again make the playoff if Allar improves and Penn State adds some capable receivers around him. Yet, it's hard not to think Penn State is stuck in purgatory under Franklin. The team will likely always be good but rarely, if ever, great because of the head coach's deficiencies.
It might not happen for next year's playoff, which would require unanimous support, but it also feels increasingly likely that the format will change in the future, particularly the elimination of byes to conference winners. For instance, that could mean a team like Boise State, which won the Mountain West yet ranked No. 9, wouldn't get the No. 3 seed and a bye. The dream path Penn State got this year feels like a short-term loophole that will eventually get changed.
Penn State was a play or two away from playing in the national championship on Jan. 20. Unless Penn State's current recruiting trajectory completely flips, it'll be as close as it ever gets under Franklin.
