After years of being one of the best teams in the second tier of college football contenders, Penn State expected to make the leap into that elite tier in 2025 and compete for a national championship. Six games into the season, and the Nittany Lions' dreams of a playoff appearance, much less making it all the way to the national title game, have vanished.

After consecutive losses to UCLA and Northwestern as more than 20-point favorites -- the first FBS team to do so in over 30 years -- James Franklin's Nittany Lions, now 3-3, have hit a low point in his tenure as coach. The only sub-.500 season in Franklin's 11 previous seasons at Penn State was going 4-5 in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, as he has otherwise raised Penn State's floor to a perennial strong Big Ten performer.

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