NHL roundtable: Breakout stars, teams that will shock, Avs’ repeat chances
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2 years agoon
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ESPN staff
Opening night of the 2022-23 NHL season is on Oct. 11, with a doubleheader slated to be broadcast by ESPN: Tampa Bay Lightning at New York Rangers at 7:30 ET, followed by Vegas Golden Knights at Los Angeles Kings at 10 ET.
Although we’ve learned a lot about all 32 teams throughout the preseason, some lingering questions remain. We’ve gathered a panel of our reporters and analysts to tackle five of the biggest:
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What player will take a leap to stardom?
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Which rookie are you most excited to watch?
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What has to happen for the Avs to repeat?
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Which team will disappoint?
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Which team will be a pleasant surprise?
How to watch the 2022-23 NHL season on ESPN networks — including 103 exclusive games and over 1,050 games on NHL Power Play on ESPN+.
What player will take a leap to stardom this season?
Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter: Moritz Seider made a jump last season, scoring 52 points in 82 games en route to winning the Calder Trophy. It’s possible he could raise his profile even more with another standout season and potentially attract some Norris Trophy consideration.
Leah Hextall, NHL broadcaster: Fresh off a four-year, $31 million deal, Jason Robertson is motivated and has the ability to repeat and build on his 40-plus goal season in Dallas. He’s set to be a star in Dallas and a household hockey name.
Victoria Matiash, NHL analyst: I don’t believe we’ve seen anything near what Lucas Raymond is capable of yet. He leveled out a bit last April, suggesting the gas tank neared empty after a full 82-game season. The 20-year-old will be better prepared, and even more productive, through his second tour on a Detroit top line with center Dylan Larkin.
Arda Öcal, NHL broadcaster: Jack Hughes. He had some sweet highlight-reel goals last season, including throwing his stick into the crowd after an overtime winner. In terms of on-ice flash, he and Trevor Zegras seem to be cut from the same cloth, and I’m here for all of it.
Kristen Shilton, NHL reporter: Cole Caufield. The Canadiens’ youngster came to life late last season under Martin St. Louis. And there’s a big opportunity up for grabs in Montreal’s lineup. Caufield has good hands around the net and a great shot; he could light it up this season for a team that needs it.
Greg Wyshynski, NHL reporter: Tim Stützle has been centering Claude Giroux and Alex DeBrincat during the preseason for the Ottawa Senators, which I imagine is a pretty good spot if you’re Tim Stützle. He had 58 points in 79 games last season. This line could be a multiplier.
Which rookie are you most excited to watch?
Clark: Matty Beniers scoring nine points in his first 10 games last season has created expectations he should challenge for the Calder Trophy. Now it is a matter of how he looks over a full 82-game season.
Hextall: Jake Sanderson. The University of North Dakota product is everything you want in an NHL defenseman. He’s an elite skater, moves the puck, makes good decisions and is mature beyond his years.
Matiash: Cole Perfetti. Tucked in the Jets’ top six, the No. 10 overall pick from 2020 is going to hit 65 points. Goodness knows that team could use such a boost — productively and emotionally.
Öcal: Other than Shane Wright vs. the Habs, I’d love to see how Juraj Slafkovsky slots into that Montreal lineup. Does he start the season there, and does he make an immediate impact? He’s certainly got the size and hands, along with loads of confidence, even if he’s a little inconsistent at times (as expected of a rookie).
Shilton: Mason McTavish. The Anaheim Ducks freshman showed off at the World Juniors in August, earning MVP honors while leading Canada to gold with eight goals and 17 points. He’ll bring top-end skill, speed and creativity to a rising Ducks’ squad.
Wyshynski: A lot of the rookies listed here sound very exciting, but do any of them hold the very fate of their team in their tender gloves? Logan Thompson could very well determine whether or not the Vegas Golden Knights make the playoffs, with starting goalie Robin Lehner out for the season.
What has to happen for the Avs to repeat — and how likely do you think it is to happen?
Cale Makar reflects on his offseason after winning the Stanley Cup and what the Avalanche are hoping to achieve this season.
Clark: Finding a consistent second-line center. Nazem Kadri‘s departure leaves a hole the team believes can be filled internally. If so, then, it solves a major concern. If not, they could be pressed to find the answer elsewhere. Whoever it is, they will play a vital role in the Avs’ chances for a consecutive title.
Hextall: To repeat, the Avalanche need to pick up where the team left off and most importantly stay healthy — which takes a little luck. But the window to win is wide open, and it looks like the Avs will have a good shot. Oh, and Nathan MacKinnon hasn’t settled down because he won — now he wants more.
Matiash: One of Pavel Francouz or Alexandar Georgiev has to run with the starter’s gig in net. Someone — J.T. Compher or Alex Newhook or someone else — has to somewhat replace Nazem Kadri at second-line center. I don’t think either happens.
Öcal: The Avs didn’t win the Stanley Cup because of goaltending. But they won. Now that Darcy Kuemper is gone — just the fourth time in NHL history a starting goalie who won the Cup went to another team that offseason — they have Pavel Francouz and Alexandar Georgiev. If the goaltending can be good — not stellar, just good — the team will be in a fine position to make another Cup run.
Shilton: Colorado needs Newhook to take hold of a second-line center job and Georgiev to enter the best phase of his career. The Avalanche have no reason to be complacent otherwise. With the right retooling, Colorado has a great chance at going back-to-back.
Wyshynski: It’s a bit cliché, but locating that previously insatiable hunger to win. It’s one thing to use years of motivation as fuel for a Stanley Cup championship run. It’s another to conjure that desire for a second straight Cup. Sidney Crosby did it. Victor Hedman did it. Can Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar do it?
Which team is most likely to disappoint?
Clark: The Winnipeg Jets. They have the talent to challenge for at least a wild-card berth. But the same thing could be said about the Vancouver Canucks and Vegas Golden Knights, who also missed the postseason last year. It’s possible the Jets could get back into the playoffs. But it is also plausible they could miss out considering the Western Conference appeared to get stronger.
Hextall: The Boston Bruins. Early-season injuries will provide a tough task for new head coach Jim Montgomery. First-line wing Brad Marchand, No. 1 defensemen Charlie McAvoy and top 4 defenseman Matt Grzelcyk will all miss the opening months. The B’s will be competitive, but not a contender.
Matiash: The Washington Capitals. Too old and/or too banged up. Alex Ovechkin will score, and newbie Darcy Kuemper will steal a few, but neither will do enough of either to emerge from what’s shaping up to be an even tougher Metropolitan Division this season.
Öcal: One of the Pittsburgh Penguins or Washington Capitals. It feels like one of these two teams might not make the postseason, which would be a shame for many long-time hockey fans because Sid and Ovi carried the star power of this league for many years. But with many of the same faces, particularly the “band is back together” vibe in Pittsburgh, one has to wonder if Father Time will catch up and if legacy will make room in the postseason for more energetic youth. But hey, if there are two guys that could easily prove someone wrong …
Shilton: The Minnesota Wild. Did they do anything to improve upon last season’s finish? There’s talent in Minnesota for sure, but standing pat rarely bodes well in the NHL. It seems like other teams could blow right by the Wild.
Wyshynski: The Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks have Bruce Boudreau, a Vezina Trophy-caliber goalie in Thatcher Demko and a strong collection of offensive players. But I don’t like their defense. I’m not sold on their depth, and there are at least four teams better than they are in the division. Plus, there’s a weird dysfunctionality in that organization, as Boudreau’s offseason negotiation signified.
Which team is most likely to surprise in a positive way?
Clark: The Ottawa Senators. Getting Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux further strengthens their top-six options with two productive players. Jake Sanderson could be the latest homegrown talent to represent what makes the Sens’ plans so promising. But Cam Talbot‘s injury does raise questions about how they will manage in net to start the season.
Hextall: The Detroit Red Wings. GM Steve Yzerman went to work in free agency signing David Perron, Andrew Copp, Dominik Kubalik, Ben Chiarot and Olli Maatta, to name a few. He found a solution in net, trading for and signing Ville Husso, who played well for St. Louis. Add this to Detroit’s young stars and we could see a big step forward by the Wings under new head coach Derek Lalonde.
Matiash: The Columbus Blue Jackets. Youngsters Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger are going to make a greater impact sooner than expected. The underrated addition of Erik Gudbranson helps fortify the blue line, and while he’s just one player, Johnny Gaudreau is about as dynamic an addition as they come.
Öcal: The New York Islanders. Last season will prove to be a series of unfortunate events. One of their foundational players, Mathew Barzal, is now inked long-term. Ilya Sorokin is poised to claim his spotlight as a top goaltender in the league. This team has what it takes to prove that last season was an anomaly and remind the league why they made two straight conference finals.
Shilton: The Buffalo Sabres. There’s a real sense of optimism around that growing group, from Tage Thompson to Rasmus Dahlin to Alex Tuch. The addition of Eric Comrie in net was a highly underrated offseason move. It seems certain the Sabres won’t be an easy out this season.
Wyshynski: The New Jersey Devils. The Devils will make the leap to the playoffs if new assistant coach Andrew Brunette fixes the power play, they finally get competent goaltending, and they aren’t crushed by injuries to top players like Jack Hughes again. I think all of that happens for a young and talented team.
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Sports
Santa Anita postpones Friday’s card due to fires
Published
2 hours agoon
January 9, 2025By
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Associated Press
Jan 9, 2025, 06:27 PM ET
Santa Anita Park postponed Friday’s racing program until Jan. 16 because of poor air quality forecast in Arcadia, California, near the Eaton Fire.
The California Horse Racing Board approved the rescheduling of the 10-race card, which will be run with the horses previously entered.
“While Santa Anita continues to remain well outside of any active fire area, the smoke from the wildfires is affecting all of Los Angeles County,” track general manager Nate Newby said Thursday. “We also want to respect the impact that this tragedy has had on many of our community, including our horsemen and women and our own Santa Anita team, who have been devastated by these fires.”
A decision on Saturday and Sunday’s racing will be made Friday.
The track was handing out N-95 masks to all backstretch and frontside workers as well as protective eyewear because of the smoke.
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How a Sugar Bowl scramble exemplified the best of Riley Leonard at Notre Dame
Published
6 hours agoon
January 9, 2025By
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David Hale, ESPN Staff WriterJan 9, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
Close- College football reporter.
- Joined ESPN in 2012.
- Graduate of the University of Delaware.
The easiest way to understand why quarterback Riley Leonard has Notre Dame on the verge of its first national title game in more than a decade is to watch him run.
Really, any run will do. But perhaps the best — or at least, most recent — example is the run on third-and-7 with 5:53 left in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. The Irish were nursing a 23-10 lead, chewing up the final minutes in a game of keep-away, and Leonard needed a conversion. He took the snap, took a half-step forward, then tucked the ball and darted outside. He slid out of a tackle behind the line with a stiff-arm, then outran a defender to the perimeter. At the line to gain, he met Georgia star Malaki Starks head-on. Starks went low. Leonard leaped — flew almost — in a head-first jailbreak for the marker.
Leonard soared over Starks, landed 3 yards beyond the line-to-gain, popped up with the ball in his hand and signaled for the first down.
The crowd went wild. His teammates went wild. Leonard, the kid from a little town in southwest Alabama, at least reached something close to wild.
“Everybody keeps telling me to stop doing that,” Leonard said of the hard run. “I did it. And it worked out. But we’re in the playoffs, so it’s like — put your butt on the line.”
Notre Dame QB Riley Leonard flipped over him for the first down 😯 pic.twitter.com/p1JNgmQOCw
— ESPN (@espn) January 3, 2025
Notre Dame’s drive ate another four minutes off the clock, and after stuffing Georgia on downs, the Irish celebrated a Sugar Bowl win — their biggest victory in more than 30 years. Now, their next biggest game is a date with Penn State in the playoff semifinals on Thursday in the Capital One Orange Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN).
Notre Dame is here for many reasons, but perhaps the biggest one is Leonard’s drive to win at all costs. Not that anyone doubted Leonard’s competitiveness when he arrived at Notre Dame in January as an injured transfer from Duke. But what he has shown in the past three months since the Irish last lost a football game — a loss Leonard took full responsibility for — is that he’ll put his butt, his shoulder, his head and anything else he needs to on the line if it means winning a football game.
“It’s in his DNA,” said offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. “I knew he was a competitive guy. That’s a strong trait we knew he had. But it’s so much greater than I’d imagined. He’s a winner, and he brings people around him to his level. And I think that’s the biggest compliment you can give a quarterback.”
Those runs like the Sugar Bowl scramble are the height of playoff football, but Leonard has been doing this since he was young. He played some wide receiver growing up, and he loved going across the middle. He torments defenders at practice, teammate RJ Oben said, because he’ll run hard even wearing a noncontact jersey. He played baseball, too, and his father, Chad, jokes that Riley knew how to slide feet-first then, but he refuses to do it on the football field.
“I hold my breath waiting for him to get up,” said Heather Leonard, his mother, “but when they need something, he’s always going to get it.”
It’s the dichotomy of Riley’s approach. He is overlooked, polite, smiley and understated, and yet at the same time he’s utterly driven to win at a level even other players find hard to capture.
Perhaps that’s the secret to those runs. He’s underestimated, and he’s relentless.
“I don’t understand why I’m hard to tackle, honestly,” Leonard said. “I don’t have very good juke moves. I’m very tall. Not intimidating, at least on the field. But guys just miss.”
Plenty of people missed on Leonard coming out of high school.
Back in Fairhope, Alabama, he played football and baseball, but basketball was his passion. College basketball was the dream until COVID-19 hit and scuttled Leonard’s best opportunities to impress college recruiters. That’s when he started to seriously consider football as an alternative. Turns out, one of his coaches was pals with former Duke coach David Cutcliffe, who liked what he saw in Leonard. Duke was Leonard’s only FBS scholarship offer.
Leonard’s first college start came on Nov. 13, 2021. It was 17 degrees in Blacksburg, Virginia. Winds swirled, and the crowd was ferocious. Leonard was so out of sorts, he forgot his mouthguard leaving the locker room, then amid the team’s run onto the field for kickoff, he turned and retreated, pushing his way through a sea of charging teammates to retrieve it, like an overwhelmed performer retreating from the stage.
Leonard threw for just 84 yards in that game. Three weeks later, Cutcliffe was fired at Duke after the team finished 3-9. Mike Elko arrived for 2022, and Leonard opened fall camp that year in the midst of a QB competition, which he narrowly won before the opener.
He won that game. Then another. And he kept on winning.
Duke finished 2022 a surprising 9-4, Leonard started gaining legitimate attention from NFL scouts, and after upending Clemson in the 2023 opener, the attention reached a fever pitch.
None of it fazed the kid from Fairhope.
Back in his high school days, he began a tradition with his mom. He wanted to avoid the pitfalls of success and stay grounded in the work, so he asked her to text him with the same message before every game: “You suck.” He now wears a green wristband with the same words. Leonard’s biggest fear has always been forgetting how hard it is to win. Appreciating the difficulty is his secret weapon.
Football delivered another reminder of its fickle nature just as the wave of Riley-mania reached its zenith in Durham. Duke was 4-0, and Leonard had the Blue Devils on the brink of a program-defining win over Notre Dame. But the Irish broke a late run to take the lead, Leonard injured his ankle in a failed comeback attempt, and over the next eight months, he struggled to get back on the field, endured three surgeries, and ultimately transferred to South Bend, joining the program that had effectively ended his miraculous run at Duke.
For Leonard, Notre Dame represented a chance to finish his college career at a level that might have seemed unimaginable when it began.
“I wanted an opportunity to reach my potential as a player,” he said. “I’m at a point in my career now where I have the most confidence in my game. I understand this offense probably more than any offense I’ve ever been in.”
It didn’t start out that way though.
Notre Dame opened its season with a hard-fought win over Texas A&M, but one in which Leonard and the offense struggled to move the ball through the air. A week later, the one-dimensional attack proved costly. Northern Illinois‘ defense utterly flummoxed Leonard, and the Huskies stunned Notre Dame 16-14. It was arguably the biggest upset of the college football season, and any hopes for the playoff were on life support.
That version of Riley Leonard looked lost.
“I don’t even think I’d recognize the player that was playing earlier on in the season,” he said recently.
Leonard isn’t into making excuses, but he had missed all of spring practice and much of the summer. He simply hadn’t had enough reps with his new team. He was frustrated — even if he rarely let it show, Heather said.
“That was one of the hardest weeks of his life,” Heather said. “It definitely took a toll on him, but he also knew he had to move on.”
Leonard promised his team he’d be better. He took the blame for the loss, and he assured his teammates he’d approach the rest of the season the same way he does those third-down runs. He would leave nothing in the tank.
“He took it on his shoulders,” said tight end Mitchell Evans. “You could see it in the way he practices, his mindset, his confidence — he has grown in a remarkable way. That’s what you have to do to be the Notre Dame quarterback.”
After four games, Leonard had yet to throw a touchdown pass in a Notre Dame uniform.
But in the 10 games since, Leonard has completed 68% of his throws, has an 81.1 Total QBR, and has 17 touchdown passes to just four picks. And the 13-1 Irish haven’t lost again.
“Riley has shaken off the ‘he’s just a runner’ thing people were saying about him,” said tailback Jeremiyah Love, “and we’re more explosive in the passing game. The running game is better than it was, and the offensive line has come together. We’re way better now.”
And so what if it was still a run — a hard, physical, acrobatic run — that served as Leonard’s highlight in Notre Dame’s biggest win of the year? He was hurting after the NIU loss because he felt like he had let his team down, but he had never listened to any of the criticism about his arm. He said he doesn’t care how he’s perceived.
“The moment I start to say I need to throw this many yards or score this many touchdowns is when I get off track,” he said. “My job is to win the football game however that may look.”
He is two victories away from claiming his place among the greatest winners in the history of one of college football’s most storied programs. That’s a long way from the basketball courts in Fairhope.
But Leonard has never paid much attention to how far off his destination might seem. He likes to dream big, and if there are obstacles in his way, well, Georgia’s defenders found out how that goes.
The one thing that has changed in the waning moments of his unlikely college football career is Leonard is trying to take some time to reflect.
“I don’t think I would’ve written the story any differently,” Leonard said. “It’s cool now to go back and look at it. I don’t really do that too often, but I’m very proud of the person I’ve grown into.”
He still hasn’t watched film from that NIU game, but he said he will once the year’s over, because it’s a moment he now cherishes, one that helped him get to where he is now. It’s supposed to be difficult, he said. That’s what makes it fun.
“I try to remind myself to appreciate it — like, you’re living your dream,” he said. “I don’t want to live my dream and then end up thinking you shouldn’t have taken that for granted. But moments like these make me appreciate it.”
Sports
Can Penn State coach James Franklin win the big one?
Published
11 hours agoon
January 9, 2025By
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Heather Dinich, Senior College Football InsiderJan 9, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
Close- College football reporter
- Joined ESPN.com in 2007
- Graduate of Indiana University
There’s no sugarcoating it: As Penn State‘s coach, James Franklin owns an abysmal 4-19 record against opponents ranked in the Associated Press top 10 — and is just 3-10 in such games when his team is also in the top 10.
It’s a mark that saw a small but significant boost with Penn State’s resounding 31-14 College Football Playoff quarterfinal win against No. 8-ranked Boise State in the VRBO Fiesta Bowl, but with each step forward in the CFP bracket comes a greater opportunity — and louder doubters about Franklin’s ability to beat the best.
As the Big Ten runner-up and No. 6 seed in the College Football Playoff, the narrative surrounding Penn State was that they had arguably the easiest path to the national title — a home game against overmatched No. 11 seed SMU, followed by a matchup against Mountain West Conference champion and No. 3 seed Boise State. The Nittany Lions outscored their first two playoff opponents by a combined 69-24.
Now Franklin is two wins away from the school’s first national championship since 1986, but in order to win it, he has to do something that has eluded him during most of his career: beat a top-5 team. He is 1-14 at Penn State against AP Top-5 teams, the lone win coming in 2016 against No. 2 Ohio State. By comparison, former Alabama coach Nick Saban (30-16), former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer (14-5) and Georgia coach Kirby Smart (11-7) all have winning records against AP Top-5 opponents, according to ESPN Research. Ohio State coach Ryan Day, though, is 5-6 against them, and former Penn State coach Joe Paterno was 3-12 in his first 15 games against AP Top-5 teams at Penn State.
Franklin is also 0-5 against teams ranked in the top five by the CFP selection committee, and he has lost those games by an average of 20.4 points according to ESPN Research. The Nittany Lions will face Notre Dame (No. 3 AP/No. 5 CFP) on Thursday in a College Football Playoff semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) in what is undoubtedly the biggest game of Franklin’s career.
Franklin “understands” his fans’ frustration. He declined to comment for this story but said this following a 20-13 loss to No. 4 Ohio State on Nov. 2: “Nobody is looking in the mirror harder than I am. I’ve said this before, but 99% of the programs across college football would die to do what we’ve been able to do in our time here.”
Despite his struggles against top teams, Franklin enters the Orange Bowl with a record of 101-41 and is 64-33 in the Big Ten over the past decade in State College. That includes five top-10 finishes, a Big Ten title (2016) and regular appearances in New Year’s Six bowl games. Under Franklin, Penn State joins Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State as the only programs that have ranked in the selection committee’s final top 12 at least seven of the past nine seasons.
He has six years left on his contract and the support of his administration.
“I’m not going to give credence to the criticism, because I see it differently,” said Penn State athletic director Patrick Kraft, who was hired at Penn State on July 1, 2022 after serving two years as the athletic director at Boston College. “When I got here, I was really surprised where just the infrastructure and how everything was set up, how behind we really were. Yes, wins and losses are what we are all judged on, but I will tell you, the culture of that building and the young men he brings in and graduates are second to none.
“You don’t see behind the curtain as a fan or just someone watching,” Kraft said, “and when you get behind the curtain, the thing that oozes out for me is culture and family. That’s really how it’s built, but the infrastructure behind it wasn’t matching that culture and we still have a ways to go. So yes, we want to win every single game — that’s the expectation for every program, but to see what he has done and that consistency is what’s remarkable to me.”
As a former Big Ten head coach who spent seven seasons leading Indiana, first-year Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen has studied the Nittany Lions from the inside out. He has game-planned against Franklin, and now he’s trying to help Franklin win his first national title. Allen heard Franklin’s critics when he was at Indiana, and he has heard them again as a member of Franklin’s staff.
“Now that I’m here and I see the behind-the-scenes and the day-to-day and see how much of a bulldog he is — that’s the word I use — he’s a bulldog for the details and the little things and just being on top of everything,” Allen said. “To me, those criticisms, they’re not fair, but until you win those big games, they’re going to be there. And I think we all as coaches understand that.”
What Franklin has accomplished so far is often overshadowed by what he hasn’t. According to ESPN Research, when Franklin won his 100th game at Penn State in the first-round against SMU, he became the fourth FBS coach to win 100 games at a single school since he headed to State College in 2014. The career milestone put him in elite company, joining Dabo Swinney at Clemson (129 since 2014), Nick Saban at Alabama (127 from 2014-23) and Kirby Smart at Georgia (105 since 2016).
There’s one thing separating Franklin from the rest of the group, though — multiple national titles.
“We don’t run away from the expectation,” Kraft said. “Being the head coach of Penn State, there’s so much scrutiny on him and he handles it really well internally. He and I are partners in this.”
One current Big Ten head coach said the expectations of Franklin should mirror the resources he has to work with.
“Ryan Day has been in championships, Clemson has been in championships, Bama has won them, Michigan has won them,” he said. “If the Penn State expectation is they should have at least played for championships in 10 years of his tenure, then no, he’s not successful, right? If their expectation is, ‘Hey, we only have resourced him to be a 10-win team, January 1 bowl team, right at the bottom of the blue bloods from a resource standpoint — which I don’t know — then yeah, he matches the expectations of a 10-win guy. If you’re a blue blood, are you being resourced like Clemson, like Michigan, like Ohio State, like the people we’re comparing them to, because it’s not fair to have that expectation if he hasn’t had the resources.”
Kraft said so much of Penn State’s growth under Franklin has come behind the scenes with things like working to build the budget for NIL, salaries for assistant coaches, stadium renovations and improvements for Penn State’s student-athletes in all sports in areas such as mental health, nutrition and travel — all things that ultimately contribute to winning a national title but happen off the field.
“You have to build the infrastructure in-house,” Kraft said. “That is what I think has really improved is allowing him — and all of our sports — to go and do the things they need to do internally to get to the championship level.”
A second Big Ten head coach said the most noticeable improvements with Penn State and Franklin this year are twofold: the hire of two proven coordinators in Allen and offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, and Franklin’s overall growth as a head coach in certain situations.
“James has surrounded himself, in my opinion, with maybe the best coordinator combo in our league,” the source said. “Now James has been able to manage games and do the things he’s good at for the first time. He’s at a different level as a head coach.
“I get it, I get the narrative,” the coach said, “but that’s probably based on more of the past than the present. Even him having a better understanding of how you’ve got to use your players. He’s been at Penn State so long, he’s always been the favorite, so when he gets in these games where he’s the underdog, you’ve got to not only play different, you’ve got to strategize different. And when he ran that fake punt against Minnesota … I don’t think he’s ever had to do that before, and he’s kind of realizing, this is what I’ve got to do to win this game. I can’t just win it on my talent alone. And there’s a learning curve for that.”
Kotelnicki said Franklin doesn’t get enough credit for being as consistently good as he has. From 2016 to 2019, Franklin led Penn State to 42 wins, the most in program history for the Big Ten era, and a school-record 28 conference wins.
“It’s really hard to win, and to do it over a decade like he has as a head football coach here, it’s really hard,” Kotelnicki said in the Nittany Lions’ locker room following their win against Boise State. “I’ve had the opportunity in my life to work with some pretty good head coaches. He’s in elite company for sure. So I don’t know if [beating Boise State] is going to silence the critics — probably not. … But I hope it does [calm down] a little bit for his sake. He deserves a little, ‘Alright, OK, I guess he’s OK.'”
Penn State’s defense was more than “OK” in the Fiesta Bowl win against Boise State, and it will have to play at a championship-caliber level for Franklin to improve his record and advance against the Irish. According to ESPN Research, the defense is at the heart of Penn State’s problem in previous top-10 matchups. The Nittany Lions have allowed 31 points per game in those matchups and 422 total yards. The defense has also allowed 190 rushing yards per game under Franklin in top-10 matchups.
Against Boise State and Ashton Jeanty, the Heisman runner-up was held to a season-low 104 rushing yards. That trend will need to continue: Notre Dame has relied on its running game this season, ranking in the top five in yards per rush and rushing touchdowns.
Penn State will be playing its third AP Top-5 matchup of the season, losing the previous two games against Ohio State and Oregon. The program’s woes run deeper than Franklin, too: The Nittany Lions haven’t won a top-five matchup since 1999 against No. 4 Arizona.
“You just have to do a great job of blocking that out, but also not being afraid to dig and find ways to create change,” Allen said. “That’s what I see him doing, is, ‘Hey, what can we do?’ and there’s this constant evaluation of how we practice, the game plans if something doesn’t go a certain way. I see him just being so relentless in that as the leader of our program. So to me, I just think it’s a matter of time.”
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