Ohio has become an obsession to James Franklin. PSU played way too tight against them this season. The team, I sense, is feeling the weight of his obsession. After the 2018 loss Franklin was at his most emotional:

“I'm pretty upset right now because I am hurting for those guys right in that locker room. I know how hard they've worked. The reality is that we have gone from an average football team to a good football team to a great football team. We have worked hard to do those things, but we are not an elite football team yet. As hard as we have worked to go from average to good, and from good to great – the work that it's going to take to get to an elite program, it's going to be just as hard as the ground and the distance that we have already traveled. Scratch and claw and fight. Right now, we are comfortable being great. I am going to make sure that everyone in our program, including myself, is very uncomfortable because you only grow in life when you are uncomfortable. So, we are going to break through and become an elite program by doing all the little things. Lose by one point this year, lose by one point last year, you make that up by all the little things. By going to class consistently so the coaches don't have to babysit you and we can spend our time developing you as men and as people and as players, and not be babysitting little things. …It's all the little things that are going to matter and we are going to find a way to get from being a great program – which we are just so everyone is crystal clear. We are a great program. We lost to an elite program, and we are that close. We have gotten comfortable being great, we will no longer be comfortable being great. We are going to learn from this and grow from this, and we are going to find a way to take that next step as a program because we have been knocking at the door long enough. It is my job as the head coach, I am ultimately responsible for all of it. I will find a way, we will find a way, and with all the support of everybody in this community and everybody on this campus and the lettermen and everybody else, we are going to get this done. I give you my word, we are going to find a way to take the next step. I can read off all these stats, but the stats don't matter. We are done being great. We’re a great team but we’re not an elite team.

“ It's getting everybody to commit to waking up every single day and trying to be the best you possibly can be, and we haven't done that. We've gotten to a point where we are great, and we're comfortable with being great. That's the issue. We haven't broken through with these types of programs yet. That's everything. Every single thing matters. I'm going to be all over all of it. Myself, the coaches, the players, the trainers, the doctors, the facilities, the administration—all of it. Because no one's happy with this. Our fans aren't happy. I'm not happy with it. I could sit here and say it's a moral victory and all that because we lost to a higher-ranked team by one point. No. It's not good enough. So, if I drove everybody crazy the last four years, we're going to take it to a whole other level.

“It's all the details. It's all the little things. It's finding a way to overcome adversity consistently. It's, like I said, going to class to consistently. It's getting to meetings on time. It's having your phone turned off in the meetings. It's not settling for a "B" in a class when you could've got an "A". It's taking notes in every single meeting—every single meeting. Not because the coaches told you to do it, but because you want to be great. It's the coaches making sure that that's the standard. That we don't settle, we don't make excuses, we don't allow it to happen. There is a way to be unbelievably successful in life, in football. That's what we're going to do. And we have let little things slip by. That isn't happening, because those little things that have slipped by is one point last year and it's one point this year. It's not happening anymore. You guys thought I was a psychopath in the past? You have no idea. And I don't want you to take it the wrong way. I'm not saying that from a negative standpoint. I'm not a negative guy…we grow every single day and we challenge ourselves every single day and we get uncomfortable. We get comfortable being uncomfortable and break out of "great" to get to that next phase.

“I’m not going to sit here and say it was good enough. It wasn't good enough. And again, I don't want anybody to misinterpret anything. I'm not blaming the players. I'm not blaming the assistant coaches. It's on me. James Franklin. …James Franklin. [emphasis in original] And we're going to get it done together, but ultimately, I'm responsible. I'm going to make sure it gets done, no matter what.

It is one of the greatest, er, most elite, speeches I have ever heard a sports coach give.

That was his second straight one-point loss to the “Buckeyes”. The obsession started there. After watching extended highlights of the 2017 and 2018 games I can see how the obsession would develop. I just saw the 2017 game with my own eyes—and in condensed version—and I still don’t know how they lost that game. PSU was no. 2 in the country. Opening kickoff: TD. Then it was 14-0. James was delirious, jumping and hugging quarterback Trace McSorley. Then it was 21-3. It was 35-20 after 3Q. It was 38-27 with 5:42 LEFT IN THE GAME! And STILL they lost.

2017 was one of the most exquisitely painful losses I have ever seen in college tackle football. And that’ll make ya obsessed. 

You can see the seeds if the tightness that I sense in the 2023 game in that 2018 speech. This year’s QB, Drew Allar was in tears as he faced the media. It is a truism of sports that when you play the game you play best when you play loose. PSU was tighter than a 10-year old’s asshole this year. No wonder, they were playing for an obsessed, self-described “psychopath” who vowed in 2018 to “drive everybody crazy to a whole other level.” That is how you want to coach 19-year old Drew Allar? No. James has to let go of his obsession, lighten up and loosen up or the Ohio game will consume him and his future PSU teams. Godspeed, James. Sincerely. 🙏