The USC Trojans capped off their 2024 regular season with a 7-6 record. The post Dan Lanning & James Franklin’s Unthinkable USC Antics Force Lincoln Riley’s Confidant To Step Up appeared first on EssentiallySports.

Penn State is now 4-20 against Top 10 opponents under head coach James Franklin after the Nittany Lions fell 27-24 to Notre Dame in the College

This season, the Nittany Lions lost single-possession games to three such teams — Ohio State, Oregon and Notre Dame. Franklin's 34-8 over the last four seasons and has six double-digit win seasons at Penn State since taking over, but being one of the Big Ten's most reliable quality teams is rarely mentioned.

The Nittany Lions were consistently in the upper echelon of the Big Ten throughout head coach James ... At $8.5 million per year, Franklin is just ahead of Oregon's Dan Lanning.

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish will now look to secure the program's first national title since 1988. While Freeman prepares his team for one final game, Penn State head coach James Franklin is headed back to the drawing board. Penn State finished the season with a 13-3 record, including two playoff victories.

To Penn State fans, James Franklin should be a hero. Penn State made the Big Ten championship game and the College Football Playoff semifinals. Any Penn State supporter would have been salivating at that prospect before the season.

Penn State plays Notre Dame Thursday night in the Orange Bowl in one of the two College Football Playoff semifinals.

Jim Harbaugh performed woefully bad in the postseason before winning the national championship. You don’t win the big game until you do. Michigan’s khaki king never won a College Football Playoff game until he burned his blaze of victories last season, not stopping before he’d left for the NFL.

James Franklin thinks back to Super Bowl 41 ... season with its two losses both coming to teams who also made the postseason field in Ohio State and Oregon, the latter coming in the Big Ten Championship Game. The Nittany Lions beat No. 11 SMU 38-10 ...