Penn State coach James Franklin looks up at the scoreboard during his team's game against Ohio State at Beaver Stadium.

To say that James Franklin was fired by Penn State for his inability to win games against elite competition is to state the obvious.

In the end, that’s the demise of nearly every Power Four coach. For Franklin, failures in matchups against Ohio State, Oregon and others eventually overwrote his underappreciated work rebuilding the Nittany Lions into a national heavyweight from the depths of the Jerry Sandusky scandal and ensuing NCAA penalties.

That’s the story of his tenure: Starting from the lowest point in program history, Franklin and Penn State knocked on the door of a national championship but were unable to cross the threshold separating the very good teams in the Bowl Subdivision from the very best.

“As hard as we have worked to go from average to good, and from good to great,” he said after a loss to Ohio State in 2018, “the work that it's going to take to get to an elite program, it's going to be just as hard as the ground and the distance that we have already traveled.”

The first half of this season brought that into focus with last month’s double-overtime loss to the Oregon. But what followed — losses to Big Ten bottom-feeders UCLA and Northwestern — represented a major step back and a clear turning point for an administration that believed a midseason coaching change was in the program’s best interests.

Sliding-door moments dot Franklin’s tenure and raise the possibility that things could’ve turned out differently. This year’s loss to the Ducks. The loss to Notre Dame in last year’s College Football Playoff national semifinals. Losses to Ohio State and Michigan.

Overall, Franklin went 104-45 in Happy Valley, winning one Big Ten championship, making one playoff appearance and reaching five New Year’s Six bowls. But it's the 4-21 record against the top 10 that stands out. Among the 21 losses, nine were by one score, including all of the last four in the last two seasons and two frustrating one-point defeats to Ohio State in 2017 and 2018.

Looking back, these factors doomed a tenure that at times seemed poised to deliver on some massive expectations:

Inability to develop skill talent

This doesn’t apply to Penn State’s outstanding talent evaluation and development at running back, which includes one of the program’s all-time greats in Saquon Barkley and two current preseason All-America selections in Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton.

The issues were predominantly at wide receiver and the offensive line, with the latter a near-annual flaw that was often highlighted by subpar performances against the best teams in the Big Ten.

The receiver issues were in contrast to Ohio State's incredible conveyour belt of success at the position. This past offseason, the Nittany Lions brought in Syracuse transfer Trebor Pena with the expectation that he’d be the missing piece for an offense that needed someone with his proven Power Four production. But Pena has just 20 receptions through six games, with more than a third coming in the opener against Nevada.

While this year’s offensive line was pegged as the best of Franklin’s tenure, the Nittany Lions are averaging 60.4 fewer yards per game than last season and were unable to control the line of scrimmage during this three-game Big Ten losing streak.

Poor quarterback development

Christian Hackenberg was a five-star recruit who broke through as a true freshman under former coach Bill O’Brien but plateaued in his two seasons under Franklin.

Trace McSorley replaced Hackenberg and set a slew of school records but took a major step back during a disappointing senior season. Sean Clifford led the Nittany Lions to the Rose Bowl during his four-year run as the starter, but his limited skill set was brought into focus in the losses to the best teams in the Big Ten.

No quarterback embodies the Franklin era more than Drew Allar, whose rise and fall as a three-year starter symbolizes the Nittany Lions’ failures to get over the hump. Allar’s senior season is over after he was injured late in the loss to Northwestern.

Poor quarterback play was one of the program’s main culprits against top competition. Looking back at the past decade, the Nittany Lions were stymied by passing-game failures when facing ranked teams:

  • In 42 games against ranked opponents, Penn State completed 57.9% of attempts, averaged 7.1 yards per attempt and had 64 touchdowns against 42 interceptions.
  • In 81 games against unranked teams, the Nittany Lions completed 62.9% of attempts, averaged 8.2 yards per throw and had 178 touchdowns and 34 interceptions.

There was never doubting the overall talent at quarterback and across the entire offense. But what eluded Franklin was the ability to simultaneously get this entire unit on the same page — at no point could the Nittany Lions point to championship-worthy production at every level of the offense.

Hiring issues at offensive coordinator

The high point of Franklin’s tenure came with current Akron coach Joe Moorhead as offensive coordinator. Across his two seasons in 2016-17, the Nittany Lions went a combined 22-5 and averaged a combined 39.3 points per game.

The offense never reclaimed those heights under Moorhead’s successors: Ricky Rahne (2017-19), Kirk Ciarrocca (2020), Mike Yurcich (2021-23) and current coordinator Andy Kotelnicki. After he arrived with intense fanfare from Kansas, Kotelnicki’s two seasons have featured puzzling play calls in high-stress situations, most notably in last year’s loss to Ohio State when the team had four attempts from inside the 3 in the fourth quarter but failed to score.

That failure was one among many curious series of calls on offense that seemed to work against Penn State in recent years. The Lions were stuffed in the backfield on fourth down late against UCLA this season. A run play called by Rahne on fourth-and-5 ended a chance to beat Ohio State in 2018 and inspired Frankin's reaction about the difficulty of becoming elite.

Rahne is currently the head coach at Old Dominion. Ciarrocca was a one-and-done bust during the COVID season. Yurcich is currently the offensive coordinator at Youngstown State. Kotelnicki has been paid like one of the top coordinators in the Power Four but has not delivered a consistent product amid worries that his scheme is too cute to work against the most talented defenses in the Big Ten.

Franklin’s hiring issues at offensive coordinator never translated to the defense. Former defensive coordinators Brent Pry and Manny Diaz turned stints in Happy Valley into Power Four head coaching jobs at Virginia Tech and Duke, respectively.

Ohio State being Ohio State

The failures of the Franklin era were intensified by the comparison to Ohio State’s dominance of the Big Ten.

He went 1-10 against the Buckeyes, dropping eight in a row after an upset in 2016 seemed to be the spark Penn State needed to rise above the seven-win mark of Franklin’s first two seasons.

Ohio State was everything Penn State was not. The Buckeyes had elite quarterback play behind a parade of All-America starters. They were outstanding on both lines, especially on defense. Under Urban Meyer and then Ryan Day, the program was able to recruit and develop skill talent in a way that eluded the Nittany Lions’ grasp.

Chronic failures against Ohio State and the daily comparison to the program’s bitter rivals nearly consumed Jim Harbaugh’s time at Michigan, though he was eventually able to solve the Buckeyes’ riddle and bring home the Wolverines’ first unshared national championship in well over a half-century.

Franklin was never able to do the same. The Nittany Lions’ own title drought sits at nearly 40 years and seemed no closer to ending than on Franklin’s first day on the job. Among all the other factors behind his dismissal, this lack of belief he could get the program to the mountain top was Franklin’s undoing.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why did James Franklin fail at Penn State? Bid to be elite defined by missed opportunities

Reporting by Paul Myerberg, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect