College Football Playoff: When Will Penn State be Ready?

Penn State wants desperately to be a major player in college football. Here's a guide to getting there.

Year seven of James Franklin's tenure at Penn State began with a realistic question: Were the Lions good enough to reach the College Football Playoff for the first time?

Five losses later, that certainly was answered. As Ohio State makes its fourth appearance, and Clemson and Alabama their sixth each, the question now becomes this: When will Penn State make the College Football Playoff?

The goal seems more distant following a 4-5 campaign in 2020, but is it? Prior to this season, the biggest outlier in modern college football history, Penn State had won 42 games in four years, played in three New Year's 6 bowl games and won two of those. The program also extended coach James Franklin's contract through 2025, with a significant financial investment. It was close.

A playoff appearance looms as the program's next major goal. After Alabama defeated Ohio State for the national championship, Penn State players and coaches now continue finding their own path. They will include significant upgrades on offense, an expanded recruiting program, flashier spaces to live and train and a whole lot of post-pandemic money to pay for it.

Chasing the playoff became even more complicated in 2020 as Penn State, like every Power 5 program, spun a budget deficit that could impact the athletic department for years. Following the 2019 Cotton Bowl, Franklin said that Penn State wanted to be one of the college football programs "that people are talking about year in and year out." But Franklin also added this caveat.

"It will never come at the expense of doing all the other things right, which makes it that much more difficult," he said.

So it's going to take some creative thinking to get Penn State around this corner. Let's start here.

Construct a championship offense

Offense is the cornerstone of today's college football. This year, three of the semifinalists have top-10 scoring offenses. Alabama and Clemson are second and third, respectively.

Last season, LSU, Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma ranked in the top 6. LSU, the 2020 national champ, led the nation at 48.4 points per game.

Penn State's highest-ranked offenses of the Franklin era, in 2016 and 2017, had future NFL All-Pros in Saquon Barkey, Chris Godwin and Mike Gesicki; an NFL receiver in DaeSean Hamilton and the program's winningest quarterback in Trace McSorley. They were elite. Clearly, Franklin has made offense an offseason priority.

Penn State made a big play to build a championship offense, announcing the hire of Mike Yurcich as offensive coordinator. Yurcich will be the first coach on Penn State's staff with CFP experience, having been to the semifinals with Ohio State in 2019.

Yurcich has experience, at Oklahoma State, Ohio State and Texas, coordinator high-scoring offenses centered around the quarterback. Ohio State coach Ryan Day said Yurcich was instrumental in guiding quarterback Justin Fields to his breakthrough first season as a starter in 2019. 

Now, the Lions need to go hard at recruiting, and developing, their offense of the future.

“In an era of offensive football, they need five, six, seven options at the skill spots, not two or three,” ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit said in 2019. "And I think that’s the area of the program, when I look at [Penn State], that I still think they’re developing and still growing: the playmakers at the skill spots, the depth. Obviously, they have some pretty good players. But the depth of that spot I think is key when you look at some of the premier offenses and teams that are ranked in the top in the country.”

Build that 'Quarterback Lab'

Championship offenses start at quarterback, and that's a position where Penn State hasn't recruited at a nationally elite level. Yes, Penn State received the first commitment Fields, who ultimately played for Georgia and then Ohio State.

This year's collection of semifinal quarterbacks all had completion percentages and passer ratings in the nation's top 35. Fields, Clemson's Trevor Lawrence and Alabama's Mac Jones (No. 1) are among the top 10 in both.

"You know, at Ohio State, if you come to be the quarterback, you're shortstop for the New York Yankees," Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said earlier this year. "That's what I was told when I got here, and I totally agree with it. And it starts right there. You know, you have a quarterback, you've got a chance. If you don't, you don't."

Toward that end, Penn State has a pretty good idea. Plans for a "Quarterback Lab" as part of a facilities expansion made their way to a local planning commission in June. The plans were short on detail but did describe a space that would hold "specialized audio-video and technology solutions to support quarterback training."

Sounds like a tempting amenity for eager young quarterbacks. Build it.

Recruit the Transfer Portal

Penn State Athletic Director Sandy Barbour isn't a fan of the portal, having called it "a debacle" during a podcast appearance this summer. She didn't object to the act of transferring; just the public nature of it.

Still, Penn State needs to be a player in this space, perhaps at a greater capacity than it expected. The Lions might have trouble recruiting some of the nation's elite five-star talent to State College but could find experienced, talented players looking to upgrade from their current programs.

Penn State already has received commitments from four transfer players, all of whom are veterans who could contribute right away in 2021. The Lions certainly should look for more, especially a compatible quarterback.

Make the right investments

The pandemic scrambled athletic budgets, cut sports, forced layoffs and furloughs and generally uprooted the system's financial model. Now Penn State has to spend on football into this headwind, and it's going to be difficult and delicate.

Football long has been the driver of Power 5 athletic department finances and needs an even bigger cash infusion now. Despite the cuts, programs are going to spend more on football as they chase revenue generation to recoup lost revenue.

According to its most recent financial report, Penn State spent 63.5 percent of its men's sports budget on football. That might need to go even higher, though Barbour has reservations.

"I think intercollegiate athletics is going to have to reinvent itself," she said on the "Representation Without Taxation" podcast. "There’s so much that we do in intercollegiate athletics just because the other guy is, and we’re trying to keep up. We’ve got to compete with them in the Big Ten, or we’ve got to compete with them because we’re a national championship-caliber program and so and so in another conference that is a national challenger also has it.

"And your coach is coming to you and – you know, hey, I’m as competitive as they come – so well, yeah, I want to compete for a national title. So we’ll figure out a way to get you that. And then, the next thing you know, you look up and we don’t fit philosophically in the academy anymore."

It's a situation that will require some creative funding. Penn State could pursue facility naming rights, particularly for Beaver Stadium, expanded alcohol sales (when fans return) and an additional media-rights package (perhaps an in-house network) that bring in additional revenue and branding opportunities.

Further, fundraising is more important than ever. Penn State relaunched its "One Team" promotion to raise money for athletic scholarships. Once past the pandemic budget concerns, that effort should be shifted aggressively to football.

Playoff teams build themselves around rosters that are constructed by player-personnel experts, analysts and huge recruiting operations. Penn State lags the consistent playoff participants in this area.

Penn State and Alabama each have 10 assistant coaches. Alabama further employs an additional staff of more than 80 people, including 14 analysts, two directors of player personnel and a clinical social worker.

Franklin has built a much larger staff, greatly expanding the sports performance staff in particular, but can't compete with 14 analysts. Getting there is part of the playoff path.

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