It’s finally time to give up on James Franklin

Thank goodness for Gavin McKenna. That’s all I have to say after a very sad sports day. The phenom’s game-winning blast from the right circle to complete a second straight third period comeback for Penn State was a nice little pick-me-up, but it didn’t make up for the disaster that was Penn State football on Saturday.

The Nittany Lions lost 42-37 to a UCLA team that had never had the lead during its 0-4 start and had already fired its head coach DeShaun Foster. The Bruins played like they had nothing to lose and ambushed Penn State with an onside kick following their opening touchdown drive. That helped lead to UCLA holding a massive time of possession advantage in this game, but it was no excuse for Penn State acting like it had never seen a scrambling quarterback before. Nico Iamaleava rushed for 128 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries while the Penn State defense was continually out of position to stop him. The edge rushers led by Dani Dennis-Sutton kept taking wide routes into the backfield, which made it easy for Iamaleava to escape. Once he was out of the pocket, he faced either no resistance from man defense or feeble resistance from zone defense with Penn State missing tackling opportunities.

Penn State had opportunities to get back in this game, most notably when it blocked a punt and scooped up the ball in the end zone for a quick touchdown the score 27-21 midway through the third quarter. Every time Penn State got within a score, though, Iamaleava had the answer. Penn State finally had a chance to tie the score after stopping UCLA on fourth down with two minutes left in the game, but Drew Allar had his option with Trebor Pena running jet sweep action blown up by the UCLA defense on 4th and 2.

That fourth down failure pretty much ended the game, so I’m not going to get into how much Penn State botched UCLA’s final possession and allowed the Bruins to run several seconds off the clock before taking an intentional safety from punt formation. That was another example of poor coaching in this game.

I’ve defended James Franklin because even though he loses a lot of big games, he usually takes care of business as a favorite and puts Penn State in position for a Playoff berth in college football’s new landscape. However, I’m done defending this guy who will berate the refs at the end of a blowout over a cupcake and then punt from inside the 40-yard line against Oregon. Franklin’s bark is worse than his bite, and his bite isn’t worth anything if he is losing to an overmatched UCLA team. It’s time to move on. Franklin should stay in California and find someone to coach there.

And Jim Knowles can join him since he just confirmed himself as a sleeper cell for Ohio State with his inability to adjust to Iamaleava’s constant scrambling. Every time UCLA needed a first down, and it didn’t matter how long the yardage was, Iamaleava would just drop back, allow Penn State to fall out of position, and rush for the necessary yardage.

Besides that magical shot from McKenna, the other good sports thing to happen on Saturday was the Phillies blowing Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers. After falling behind 3-0 early, Los Angeles broke through for two runs against Christopher Sanchez in the sixth and set the table against David Robertson in the seventh before Teoscar Hernandez hit a three-run blast off of Matt Strahm to put his team in front. Earlier in the day, the Brewers and Blue Jays blew out the Cubs and Yankees, respectively. The night cap featured Detroit getting a huge win in extra innings in Seattle. The Tigers have a great chance to take a 2-0 series lead with Tarik Skubal on the hill tonight.

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