Scouting Penn State's College Playoff Football Chances in 2024

College football analyst Mike Golic Jr. likes the Nittany Lions' new hires and their playoff potential.

Penn State head coach James Franklin leads the Nittany Lions onto the field at Beaver Stadium for the Blue-White Game. / Dan Rainville / USA TODAY NETWORK

Penn State has been among college football's top teams recently in talent acquisition, player development, NFL Draft production and consistent winning, college football analyst Mike Golic Jr. said. Now it's time for the Nittany Lions to put it all together in the College Football Playoff.

In a recent interview, the former Notre Dame lineman and host of DraftKings' GoJo podcast scouted Penn State's playoff chances, how coordinator Andy Kotelnicki will change the offense for the better and James Franklin's place in college football.

QUESTION: What should Penn State establish as its expectations for the 2024 season?

MIKE GOLIC JR.: I mean with the expanded playoffs, it's got to be there, right? You've got to be in the conversation for one of those teams in a Big 10 where, I think for the most part, the assumption is Ohio State and Oregon are playing a little bit different game than everyone else right now. At least walking into the season, Penn State has always been talented enough. It's just last year we saw in the big games the offense turtle up a bit. So I think that, given the talent, the way that this program has recruited and produced NFL prospects and given also the way that their schedule shakes out this year, [the playoff is] where it should be.

QUESTION: You used the word “turtling” to describe Penn State’s 2024 offense in big games. How can offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki change that?

GOLIC: I don't think you're going to need to see a lot of the same tricks out of the bag to establish the ground game that he used at Kansas. But I think a lot of what Andy did well at Kansas was manufacture really good, open-shot looks for his quarterbacks in critical situations. I went back and looked last year and Jason Bean, who was the backup quarterback who ended up playing a bunch because of the injuries to Jalon Daniels, had 199 pass attempts and was second in college football in yards per attempt (10.7). They were not afraid to create opportunities for him to chuck it downfield.

... So when you look at Penn State's offense, and I went back and watched the Penn State-Ohio State game again, on some of those critical downs and distances, a lot of it was just, 'Hey we'll have some switches, we'll have some movement in the route concepts to try and rub guys.' But pre-snap, it was a little bit stagnant. For a quarterback that clearly was not super comfortable himself pushing it downfield, and he's got to develop a little bit more confidence in consistently cutting it loose in those spots, I think you've got a coordinator that's going to help. He's going to do a lot more to help his quarterback feel comfortable and see the ball go through the basket on some of those looks by manufacturing good shots.

Penn State quarterback Drew Allar drops back to throw during the Blue-White Game at Beaver Stadium. / Matthew O'Haren-USA TODAY Sports

QUESTION: How can Drew Allar benefit from an Andy Kotelnicki offense?

GOLIC: Football is a hard game in a lot of ways but a simple game in others. You are what you repeatedly do. And so if you're repeatedly being brushed away from doing those things, or having to check it down because stuff's not open, you're not going to feel as comfortable in high-leverage situations. So doing it, not being afraid to do it and call those plays in the big-time games, is important. When you've got Ohio State this season and when you're at Southern Cal and you're going to be in a game that's probably a shootout, you have a coach, and I think a coordinator, that won't be afraid to call those plays more often.

QUESTION: So Penn State should be more explosive this season?

GOLIC: You would think. The receiver room, will wait and see. Julian Fleming has a good pedigree coming from that Ohio State room. But the rest? You're going to have to go out there and prove it. Another thing is, if you look at Kansas, they did a bunch of fun stuff in the backfield to create some explosives, some run-after-catch opportunities. It's not like Penn State didn't run any two-back sets and use the tight end in there. ... But when you've got guys in the backfield as explosive as Kaytron Allen and Nick [Singleton] are, you can use that to your advantage. Every bit of it helps.

Another thing that Andy did at Kansas was use big personnel groups, put multiple tight ends on the field, multiple backs on the field, to try and get advantageous matchups on the defense. Then he used that to create more favorable one-on-one spots where you can get guys open.

QUESTION: What is Penn State getting from Tom Allen at defensive coordinator?

GOLIC: Consistency, especially when you're handing it off from Manny Diaz, who had such a specific imprint on this defense: the way that he wanted to blitz and fire zone, the way he would send bodies from almost anywhere. At this point too, when you get a head coach that had a specific skill on one side of the ball, and they get to take a step back from that CEO role and just coach again and focus on that one side of the football, you see the best of them. So I think you end up getting a group that's really consistent, well coached and is going to be assignment-sound. And you've already got playmakers. Abdul Carter is the next in line of all the great players in the front seven that we've seen come out of that school. And so I expect that group to maintain a high level of production with him at the helm.

RELATED: Penn State's Abdul Carter ranks No. 2 on The Athletic's 2024 NFL Draft Big Board

QUESTION: Where does James Franklin rank in Year 11 among head coaches nationally?

GOLIC: James was always going to be high on the Richter Scale based on what he did at Vanderbilt, a place where it just shouldn't have happened the way that it did. But since he's come over to Penn State, they've been consistently one of the premier teams in terms of talent acquisition, development, sending guys to the NFL and consistently being a team that's going to win double-digit games almost every year. Again, similar to my alma mater, he's had a bit of a big-game problem at certain junctures. And so I think James Franklin is viewed as someone who has established an incredibly solid program, one of the upper-echelon programs in college sports, where every year talent-wise, they're going to have a chance. Now it's just, can they get over the hump? He's absolutely viewed as one of the better coaches in college football. But to make that jump to one of the best, he's got to more consistently perform against Ohio State, Michigan and the other upper-crust teams in the Big 10.

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Penn State on SI is the place for Penn State news, opinion and perspective on the SI.com network. Publisher Mark Wogenrich has covered Penn State for more than 20 years, tracking three coaching staffs, three Big Ten titles and a catalog of great stories. Follow him on X (or Twitter) @MarkWogenrich.