James Franklin doesn’t want his players to focus too much on a loss that may not hurt as much as it would have last year.
This will be difficult for Penn State players, who suffered their eighth consecutive defeat to rival Ohio State, losing 20-13 on Saturday in front of the largest crowd in Beaver Stadium history.
“The reality of college football is everything is still ahead of us,” Franklin said. “And we need to do a great job of making the corrections, eliminating the unforced errors that happened today. Then we’ve got to find a way to get a win next week at home.”
Franklin, who has a record of 1-10 against the No. 4 Buckeyes, faced boos as he walked through the stadium tunnel with players entering the No. 3 Nittany Lions’ locker room.
Many players looked down at their cleats, while others offered each other support after yet another close loss in a series that has been one-sided for almost a decade.
The silver lining? Losing to Ohio State doesn’t necessarily ruin Penn State’s chances for the postseason, especially now that the College Football Playoff has expanded from four teams to 12.
The Nittany Lions (7-1, 4-1 Big Ten) will host Washington on Saturday. They will also travel to Purdue and Minnesota before playing Maryland at home in the season finale on Nov. 30.
“The thing we talked about is we can’t let one loss turn into two or three,” quarterback Drew Allar said. “We have to fix the mistakes we made today. Offensively, we’re not going to point fingers. It’s not one person that lost the game for us.”
They couldn’t — and haven’t been able to — overcome Ohio State, even though they have kept the games close for most of the last eight matchups.
Since Penn State’s last victory over Ohio State in 2016, the Buckeyes have won every game by an average of 7.8 points.
This game, played in front of 111,030 fans, was no exception. The Buckeyes were ahead 14-10 at halftime, forced two turnovers, took advantage of five penalties by Penn State, and controlled the ball in the final moments.
Meanwhile, Andy Kotelnicki’s offense, which had been exciting and unpredictable all season, struggled early and often. The Nittany Lions converted only three of 11 third downs and didn’t score a touchdown for the first time this year.
Their last possession was disastrous, as they ran three straight plays up the middle before quarterback Drew Allar threw an incomplete pass to tight end Khalil Dinkins with 5:13 left to play.
They wouldn’t get the ball back. “It comes down to the little things that caught up to us today,” Allar said. “Playing behind the sticks is something we don’t want to do against a talented team and a good defensive coordinator.”
In the past two seasons, Penn State has converted just 4 out of 27 third downs against Ohio State and scored only one offensive touchdown.
Running back Nick Singleton, who has faced Ohio State in the last three losses, was left speechless after rushing for only 15 yards. He sat in the media room after the game with his shirt pulled up over his mouth.
“Everybody’s upset,” Singleton said after a long sigh. “We felt like we didn’t finish. We’ve just got to finish, man.”
