In contrast to prior years, loss to Ohio State not an aspirations-killer for Penn State

STATE COLLEGE — James Franklin has experience in flipping the page following losses to Ohio State.

Too much experience, many fans would likely say, as the Penn State coach, midway through Year 11 in State College, is now 1-10 against the Buckeyes.

Saturday’s 20-13 defeat at the hands of No. 3 Ohio State marked the eighth straight to their heated rival by No. 4 Penn State, which has seen its aspirations in several prior seasons handicap thanks to high-profile losses vs. the Buckeyes.

While the sting is undoubtedly the same for Franklin and his players following Saturday’s loss to Ohio State, the big-picture consequences are undoubtedly lesser.

“The reality of college football is everything is still ahead of us,” Franklin said postgame Saturday. “We’ve got to do a great job of making the corrections, eliminating the things that are unforced errors that happened today and then we’ve got to find a way to get a win next week at home. Everything is still in front of us.”

In the past, losses to Ohio State have carried the ramification of falling a game behind the Buckeyes in the Big Ten’s Eastern Division.

Never under Franklin had Penn State managed to overcome regular-season losses to Ohio State, leapfrog the Buckeyes in the divisional standings and advance to the league title game.

In other words, for Penn State, the path to the Big Ten championship game hinged on its annual matchup with Ohio State.

But this season, with Southern Cal, UCLA, Washington and Oregon joining the Big Ten, increasing its football membership to 18, divisions are no more.

The Nos. 1 and 2 overall teams in the conference, with several new tiebreakers coming into effect, will compete for their title.

Despite its loss Saturday, Penn State (7-1, 4-1) remains squarely in the mix for a top-two finish in-conference.

Granted, the Nittany Lions will need to take care of business moving forward and also hope for a slip-up by the likes of No. 13 Indiana, No. 1 Oregon and Ohio State, all of which now sit atop them in the league standings .

Limiting the damage will thus be Penn State’s goal as it prepares for a visit from Washington on Saturday at Beaver Stadium.

“We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board, reflect on it, things that we did well, things that we didn’t do well and then come away from it tomorrow, make the corrections, flush it (Sunday) night and move onto our next opponent,” quarterback Drew Allar said.

Another prior consequence of losing to Ohio State that is no longer directly applicable is its correlation to capping Penn State’s College Football Playoff aspirations.

In the four-team era from 2014-23, no two-loss team was ever selected.

Losses to Ohio State loomed large for Franklin’s top teams in 2022 and 2019, which both went 11-2, finishing with No. 7 and No. 9 overall respective rankings.

The Buckeyes in both seasons beat Penn State en route to Big Ten titles and CFP selections.

The one time Franklin’s Nittany Lions managed to defeat Ohio State, in 2016, Penn State captured a Big Ten championship but suffered losses to No. 4 Michigan and unranked Pitt earlier in the season, contributing to eventual exclusion from the CFP field.

Now, 12 teams will make the playoff and the Nittany Lions have a route even if they don’t play in or win the Big Ten championship.

In that case, seeds No. 5-12 and a potential first-round home game could still be on the table for Penn State, providing it finishes the season strong.

After Washington (5-4, 3-3), the Nittany Lions face Purdue (1-7, 0-5), Minnesota (6-3, 4-2) and Maryland (4-4, 1-4), none of which are ranked, to close out the regular season.

While Franklin, Allar and Co. would do well not to overlook anyone on the schedule, regardless of how seemingly inferior, Penn State winning out and finishing 11-1 is plausible if not likely.

An 11-1 Nittany Lions team in or around the Top 5 would theoretically be a shoo-in for the College Football Playoff.

All the speculation aside, top priority for Penn State will be growing from Saturday’s defeat and getting back in the win column starting next week vs. the Huskies.

“We didn’t have the outcome we wanted, but it’s another test on the road for us,” Allar said. “You can respond one of two ways: You can respond in a negative way and point fingers or you can reflect on yourself, see what you could have done better and that’s the way that we’re going to do it. “We have a lot in front of us still.”