By Mike Rifkin
We are in the middle of another beautiful College Football season and two weeks away from the first College Football Playoff Rankings being unveiled for the first time. The biggest game of the week takes place in the Big Ten, where seventh-ranked Penn St. travels to Columbus to play the third-ranked Ohio St. While both teams have the same 6-0 record, this game is more significant for one of the teams.
This is a massive game for Penn St. Every year, we look at the Big Ten (especially after it split into two divisions) and ask ourselves, who will challenge Ohio State and Michigan? Well, recently, most years, people say Penn St., and we’re waiting for them to make that statement. Penn St. coach James Franklin is 1-8 in his career against the Buckeyes and 3-6 against the Wolverines. Penn St. can have very competitive teams every year, but at some point, Franklin has to be able to get his team over the hump. In 2021, he got a new 10-year contract from the University, making roughly 8.5 million dollars per season. That makes him the twelfth highest-paid coach in the country, but everyone in front of him, for the most part, has either won a National Championship or been to the Playoffs. If James Franklin wants to prove any doubters wrong, he has to win at Ohio State this week and, on November 11th, beat Michigan at home. If he does those things and Penn St. gets the Big Ten Championship game, he can change the narrative about him and his University.
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