Penn State's Great Expectations with Ben Jones - 2025 College Football Podcast - The Solid Verbal College Football

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the solid verbal ull that.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
For me, I'm a man, I'm forty.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
I've heard so many players say, well, I want to
be happy. You want to be happy for a day?
Edith Steak is that woo woom.

Speaker 4 (00:14):
And them and tie.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Dan Rubinstein's special episode Today, we are going through in
painstaking detail, the latest update that The New York Times
made to its top twenty two pizza restaurants in New
York City. Yeah, you a bit of a zag. Normally
this is college football.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Today, it's all yeah, that's what people people are demanding
in late May. So I don't have any thoughts. I
think you should eat the pizza that you like, and
you should try new pizza and see where that fits
into your world. And New York has a lot of
excellent pizza with many different styles. And I have my
favorites and you have your favorites, and you should, uh,

(00:56):
you know, do what makes you happy.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Do what makes you happy.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
There's a lot of places on this list I've been to,
and there are a lot of places on this list
that I'd very much like to try. New York is
a big place. It's hard to get around sometimes to
you know, deeper stretches of different burrows.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
But you know, if you're dedicated to the.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Cause, tie, if you're dedicated, no place too far away,
Like I'll go eat pizza in Tokyo, Ali Pizza in Italy,
Alli Pizza and Juno wherever, wherever pizza takes me, I'm
willing to go beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Well, hopefully for those folks that are out there, part
of what makes you happy is listening to the show. Yes,
thank you, Hit follow, hit subscribe if you're new here.
Two episodes a week all throughout the off season. Without
next week. I think we're gonna be taking a day
off because of Memorial Day holiday. We'll see if the
spirit moves us and if we end up with two
episodes next week, but you will get at least one,

(01:45):
We promise you that. For Ballers dot com is where
you can go if you want to further support what
Dan and I do. You know, we've been doing these
episodes now where we go through individual teams, talk through trajectory.
That's a big word, but trend lines or teams going
in a good direction going in a bad direction. Well,
the team today is Penn State, and Penn State, by

(02:07):
many accounts, could be the top team in the country
going into twenty twenty five, and frankly, I don't know
how to deal with that. So we're gonna have Ben
Jones on our friend from Ben Jones on Penn State
dot substack dot com. Ben's doing his own thing. Would
encourage folks to go out there and read Ben's commentary.
Always very thoughtful, very much has his finger on the

(02:30):
pulse of what's going on in the Penn State world.
So just want to have him on to help me
kind of dissect how I should feel my own feelings
about these lofty expectations that have been placed on Penn State.
So we'll do that in just a little bit. I
guess Before we do, though, we should mention this our

(02:55):
friend Ross Dellinger from over at Yahoo Sports reporting that
college football player executives are expected to adopt a straight
seating model for this season's college football playoffs. So it
would just be for this season because they're going to
change it again of course right the following season. They're
going to expand into fourteen teams at least as now

(03:17):
fourteen teams. I guess that could get bigger. But a
straight seating model, what does that mean? Well, you know
on the episodes that we did all last year when
we were describing to the mass is what exactly the
college Football Playoff would look like, and how it would
be structured and seeded, and how the matchups would work.
There was this whole bit of translation that needed to occur.

(03:39):
But now, well, I guess less translation output.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
It's the fourteen playoff extrapolated into twelve with mandatory G
five team thrown in there wherever that G five team
should end up.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Before we had the rankings are not the same as seedings,
and now they kind of are. So the way it
would have worked last year is your Orgon Ducts would
have been number one overall. Sure, Georgia would have been two,
Texas would have been three, Penn State would have been four.
Notre Dame would have been the five seed. They'd have
been playing Clemson, who was the twelve. Ohio State would

(04:11):
have played Arizona State, Tennessee against SMU, Indiana against Boise State.
It still would have been the same teams, but we
would have had a little bit of a different setup
with respect to the actual matchups. I think this is
a good move forward. You know, again, it's the same
teams that we're talking about here within the context of
this discussion, the numbers and the matchups and whatnot change. Look,

(04:35):
the sport has gotten really complicated, as we have mentioned
time and again on this show. If you're a new
fan trying to pick up college football, or even if
you're an old fan trying to pick up the new
wrinkles in college football, it's gotten really complicated between the
playoff and nil and the transfer portal and all of
these new things that we have to try and digest.

(04:56):
The seeding I always thought was kind of unnecessary the
way they did it last year. I did it to
their credit. If they change it, I think it's a
move in the right direction. Just kind of keep it simple,
stupid for those of us who are stupid, and let's
just go go buy the college football playoff rankings. Let's
use that as the seating. Like you said, you got
the mandatory G five team that we want as part

(05:18):
of this tournament. That might make things a little bit
more complicated, won't make it exactly apples to apples. It's
still going to be, I guess, a closer disciple of
whatever we see on Tuesday nights. So big winner would
be the Tuesday Night rankings reveal maybe we get a
sense from what the committee is thinking, maybe we don't,
but it sounds like they're going to go in this

(05:38):
direction with the seting. I don't know if you have
any hot takes or reactions to this, Dan, it seems
pretty straightforward to me. It's been rumored for a while.
I wasn't sure that they were going to do it
so soon. It had been rumored that maybe they would,
and then no, they weren't, and now it's I guess
apparently back on here. So what are your thoughts.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Well, look, assuming that it's still going to be the
top five champions in right, that's what it has been,
the top five conference champions in so you're kind of
devaluing in terms of seeding what you end up doing
in a conference championship game. Clemson and ASU and Boise
State I believe were the big leapers going from the

(06:17):
rankings to the seatings. Most notably, I think ASU finished
the year number twelve and was seated number four. And
so if you are disadvantaging teams that are ranked lower,
or not disadvantaging them but not advantaging them in the
same way, that's not the worst thing, though, it does
make a conference championship game less meaningful.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Well, yeah, because the way that it was structured before,
to your point, right, Okay, top five conference champions automatically
get in before the top four. We're getting first round buys.
That's how ASU ended up in that four seed. So
in this setup, ASU wins the Big twelve and I
get in a buye like they did last year. Like

(07:00):
I said, they would be a first round game against
Ohio State, right, So that changes things to the point
on Clemson, Clemson did wing did win excuse me, the
ACC In this setup, they would have been the twelve seed.
They would have been seated lower than the team that
they beat in the ACC title game. Does that matter
to you? I don't know if the number really matters.

(07:22):
Getting in is probably the most important thing, but you know,
this is where we start. I think breaking this down
in terms of who gets the buys, who gets the
home games, things of that nature.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, And obviously, look, so it changes the number of
games likely that a team like Oregon would have played
last year. Does it change the fact that Oregon, for
a chunk of the Ohio State game didn't look like
they belonged on the same field, probably not now, probably
does not change the result of an Oregon Ohio State
matchup unless it allows, you know, perhaps players to heal

(07:53):
more who would have made more and more.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
Of a difference.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
But then you're also talking about Ohio State players potentially
healing more who would have made more of a difference.
So no, I don't think ultimately you're looking at a
non Ohio State champion if this were in place last season.
But I understand from the perspective of teams who were
knocked down for being more successful than other teams throughout

(08:18):
the entirety of the season, at least in the eyes
of voters being upset with how the seedings worked out
last year. And this is always going to be a sport,
and it's always going to be a postseason of unintended consequences.
And so I still think we would have had a
very entertaining college football playoff if it had been seated
in this way. But you're also looking at Penn State
would have been a four seed right.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Or seed to the first round by and they would
have played if this went according to chalk right, they
would have played Notre Dame in the second round, a
set of the semi finals.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Right and so, and then also Texas would be a
top four seed after losing in the UH in the
or the Yeah, they would have been I think the
three there.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Would been the three seed. They would have gotten Ohio
State in the second round.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Right, and so they still had Ohio State in last
year's College Football Playoff, and ASU still had Texas if
ASU had gotten through in this universe. So no, not
a ton of changes, but it does make you think
about what the future of conference championship games are as
the playoff expands, and it seems that a bigger priority

(09:28):
for a lot of these schools is going to be
to best position oneself for the College Football Playoff rather
than win a game in Indianapolis or Northern Texas or wherever.
It's difficult to see the conference championship part of this
sport maintaining importance.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
They need to do what we mused about on one
of our bonus episodes. They need to give the five,
the six, the seven, and the eight seed the opportunity
to pick who their first round matchup is against. I
just I like the love that Dan. The content, Oh,

(10:12):
the content is dripping off of that.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
The content is great. The concept of the content, but
the adding complications to the college football playoff.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Let's take this thing that we have already over complicated
and now potentially are simplifying and make it more complicated
so that it is even harder to grasp. I understand that.
I'm just thinking of it from the standpoint of, Hey,
we need something to talk about, and that would be
something to talk about. That would be a Tuesday night
show that you and I would watch.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, of course, but I don't know if it's for
the good of the understanding of this playoff.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
No, no, of course not.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
Uh yeah, this.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Makes sense, And you are going to get some reruns,
You're going to get perhaps more often, you are going
to get some teams who perhaps are seeded lower than
it seems like they should be, or teams that are
seated higher than it seems they should be.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
And you know, not.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Having the conference championship element decide things in the same
way is definitely different. But I don't know. I think
it's fine. Ultimately, I don't think it's going to change
a ton Like we're going to get the matchups we're
going to get either way, and so you know this,
you know the twenty twenty four Penn State team is
perhaps a big victim here of like they're going to

(11:28):
have to play more difficult games Earlier, they just think
they had a great seeding run as good as SMU was.
To host SMU on just an absolute garbage winter day
in state college, and then to get Boise State, to
get a team that lost its conference championship game in
its first season as a power conference team, and then

(11:50):
a Boise State team, it's it's a nice run despite
not winning the Big Ten. With oregononing Ohio State in
their first game, so maybe we don't see that as often.
But like Penn State earned a top four seed last year.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
They earned a top four seed. And look, I'm open
to changing the idea. If you want to give the
game draft idea to the top four seeds and not
just the four teams that have to play home games
in the first round, I'm cool with that too. Let
Oregon pick, let Penn State Georgia Texas in this setup,
let them pick who they play in round two. Either way,

(12:24):
Let's add some element of I don't know, fantasy draft
to this to make it a little bit more intriguing.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
The important thing here is it does not change the
fact that Alabama would still be left out with their
horrendous losses.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Oh my gosh, Dan.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Yeah, so that's so. You know, some things are consistent.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Some things are consistent. You can always write in solidverble
at gmail dot com. I want to know, yes, your
thoughts on I guess this new seeding setup whatever we
want to call straight seting now is what we're calling this.
Of course, you can reach out on social media as well.
All right, Dan, let's do it. Let's talk some Penn State.
I have been toiling over some of these preseason expectations

(13:08):
that it seems everybody dropped at the same time this month.
But alas, we have an expert here to help us
dissect this and much much more. Ben Jones, our friend
from Ben Jones on Penn State out on substack. Welcome
back to the show, my friend.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
How are you. I'm doing great, Thanks for having me, Fel.
It's good to be here.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Good to have you. So you heard the preamble. There
are a lot of expectations floating about for Penn State
right now. What are we supposed to do with these expectations? Ben, Like,
how do you feel about it? Obviously everyone's releasing their
way too early, top twenty fives, and clearly this is
going to be a good team. But how good? That

(13:48):
seems to be the open question. Where are you at
now with some of what you've seen float about there
in terms of expectations?

Speaker 5 (13:58):
Yeah, I mean I think State has clearly been at
the point for a while now where you can go, okay,
they should probably win ten games, let's talk about the
other two and now in the college football playoffs being expanded,
it's kind of, you know, tinkered with the thinking of
what do you want out of Penn State?

Speaker 2 (14:17):
But to me, are they going to be a good team? Yes?

Speaker 5 (14:19):
I think we've like I said, we've gotten past the
overall question of is Penn State going to.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Be any good?

Speaker 5 (14:24):
The answer is yes, are they going to win those
big games? You know, I don't know that there's anything
about Oregon that early in the year that you go, oh,
they can't win that game.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
So you know, to me, Penn State at home? Yeah,
at home?

Speaker 5 (14:38):
You should feel comfortable about that in theory if you
had to pick. But I think big picture, you know,
it's gotten to seeing is believing point for me when
it comes to the wide receiver room. You know, I
think Penn State pretty much faked its way almost to
the national title game without a true number one receiver,
which I think is, you know, a testament having a

(15:00):
really good tight end and good running backs. But at
the end of the day, you know, Penn s is
not just going to suddenly be the one team that
manages to win a national title without a wide receiver
that it can rely on or on a regular basis,
and without Tyler Warren. You know, I think that that
gets more difficult. So should you have high expectations? Sure,

(15:20):
you know, because we don't know who the receiver might be,
does that mean it's not there? No, you know, I
think you obviously have forever and a half to develop guys.
But yeah, I put Pensate in the same place I've
been put in Penn Sate for the last better part
of the half decade or so. Is they'll be really good?
Will they be to Ohio State? You know, I don't
know that we have the answer to that question now

(15:41):
because we never have the answer to that question until
six minutes ago on the fourth quarter. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Well, I mean the offense was better, the passing game
statistically was better, but they lost Tyler Warren. But they
lost pretty much the entire receiver room. Guys transferred out,
They've brought in some guys. The question is, and I
think you touched on it already, I don't know if
any of us really has the answer for it. Is
that going to be enough? Is that going to be enough?

(16:07):
It's sort of like a big old shrug.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Right, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:11):
I mean, I think if you know the guys they
bring in, if they can produce, I think, you know,
Drew Aller, when he's at his best, can make every
throw that you need a quarterback to make. And I
think that he can make a lot of those throws
better than a lot of people. So I think if
you can get him the help, he can be excellent
and pens, they can win a lot of games. And

(16:31):
I think to his credit, you know, I think Drew
Aller suffers a little bit from like there a remixed
version of Christian Hackenberg syndrome, where you anticipate that because
he's really good, he will make up for everyone else's shortcomings.
And obviously Hackenberg had a lot more things to deal with.
And you know, we're a decade behind having to unpack
that again. But I think, you know, Drew to a

(16:52):
certain extent, people expect him to be Trevor Lawrence or
this guy that comes in and immediately can just do everything.
I think he needs the help. And if these guys
that they brought in can do that, then you know,
the answer might be yes. Especially you know, I think
every good quarterback's best friend is a good running game,
and I don't think there's any question that Penn State's
going to have that this year. So you know, I

(17:13):
guess we'll see, but certainly Penn State's not very many
pieces away. I think I sound pessimistic. I think it's
just made. I've just seen a lot of Penn State football.
But at the same time, you know, there's no reason
to think that they're going to be bad.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
The allur versus receiver room conversation is an interesting one.
It's one that we've had on this show. I've seen
it talked about online. I'm sure you've discussed it at
some point as well. The issues that Penn State had
with its passing game. How much of that blame do
we put on the receiver room versus how much do

(17:45):
we put on a guy like a Drew Aller, who,
as I've said time and again on this show did
pick up the position later on relative to his peers,
He's still very much learning the position. I think he
showed real progress last year, but there are definitely elements
of his game that even he would openly acknowledge and
need to improve. Is the blame for you still mostly

(18:07):
on the fact that they weren't having guys get open
or is it our you know, trepidation? Yeah, still kind
of comprehending the system.

Speaker 5 (18:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think obviously, like everything in sports,
we want it to be binary, but it's a little
bit of both. I think at the same time, if
Penn State had Johan Dotson on that team, I'm sure
that Drew Allery would be hitting him a lot more
than he was, you know, the primary guys that he
had last year. So to me, you know, are there
areas that Drew can improve? I think there's no question,
Like you said, Drew said that himself. Do you watch

(18:38):
games go oh he threw that into the ground where
he missed a guy or you know, I mean that's
every quarterback in the country. But I do think at
the same time, you can look at areas and go, yeah,
Drew's got to get better at this where he's got
to get better at that, and I think for the
most part, when you start where he was to where
he is today, he's gotten better at those things. But again,

(19:00):
if guys are open, I mean John Dottson ended up
going in the first round because he bailed Sean Clifford
out of so many you know, throws that normal people
wouldn't catch that. You know, I think if there was
a guy out there the drew is just missing consistently,
you would go like, Okay, what is the deal here?
But at the same time, they just they haven't been
Their Penn States proven pretty consistently up into the last

(19:22):
few years that it can produce one or two NFL
caliber wide receivers per unit of time, and that just
has not happened the last few years. And to me,
the quarterback hasn't gotten any worse and arguably has gotten better.
So the thing that's changed is the personnel You've found
that wide receiver room. So it's a little bit of both,
but I still tend to lean more towards the receivers.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
So what happened?

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Why is the personnel grouping in the receiver room not
one that produces a go to guy? Obviously, there's been
turnover at receivers coach these last few years. Is there
been a change in strategy? Has there been a change
in vision from up top and James Franklin, Because, like you.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
Mentioned, this is a school that produces receivers.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
You go back even as recently as Parker Washington, who
was like, oh, Parker Washington got better every year and
emerged as a true threat by the time he left
state college. What changed on that sort of line of
succession where suddenly it's well, maybe this fourth best guy
from Ohio State is the answer. Oh, maybe this guy
from Kent State is the answer. What is there a

(20:27):
specific event that you can look at and be like, ooh,
this is where it turned Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:31):
I mean I think you know, Penn State still misses
Josh Gaddis, For my money, I think that that's a
coach that they miss on a regular basis. You know,
I have not spent a lot of time with Marquez Hagen,
so I don't want to. You know, obviously we're not
in situations where we get to watch these guys coach
each and every day or whatnot that he has never,

(20:54):
for my money, come across as a guy that you
go like he has all the answers and he will
solve this problem for you. Now, I don't think that
a guy like the Kagans ends up being Penn State
Football's wide receiver coach and doesn't know what he's doing,
Like you didn't get to this point in your career
without the aptitude that allows you to get here. But
at the same time, I do think that they missed

(21:15):
that developmental piece. I think obviously, you know, Penn State
has not recruited wide receivers as well as it has
recruited other positions. If we are putting stock in what
is your ranking, what is your star ranking? Those sorts
of things that they bring in a lot of three
or four star guys, and you can make a lot
of really good wide receivers out of that. But you know,

(21:36):
you look at the top end guys that they've gotten,
and obviously, justin Shorter's career didn't really pan out anywhere necessarily,
So that's you know, in in you know, Penn State,
and I don't think Ohio State will really no one
really takes I don't think Julian Fleming is necessarily a
guy that should be blamed for not being as good
as people thought he would be. It's not a moral failing,
but you know, he's another guy that didn't necessarily pan

(21:58):
out the way that anyone expects did. So yeah, I mean,
when you don't get those really really high end guys,
when you bank on your ability to develop and then
the development doesn't quite fit in, I don't think Mike
Ersitch was necessarily the answer at times for how do
you fix this problem. I don't know that Marquez Haagens
is necessarily the end of the line in terms of

(22:19):
best wide receiver coach you could ever get. And Drew's
got to get better. So I think all of those
things kind of mold you into a room that's not
as good as it should be and probably not as
good as it has been. And I think probably a
little bit of everything has to change if Penn State
wants to get back to where it was at that position.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
So we're sort of lamenting where Penn State is as
a receiving school, but if Penn State is being compared
to the other schools that are thought of in this
like top one, two, three, four area of the country
with take your pick Texas, Georgia, you know, Oregon, Notre
Dame Whoever, where is Penn State's advantage over or where
are they comparable to where they're in this conversation. Obviously,

(22:59):
they're winning games, proof is there. The recent success is there.
But when you compare against other schools, you're like, oh,
Penn State, like it's on the edge, it's at linebacker,
it's in the secondary, it's the running back duel. Like
is it the some of the parts of Penn State
or is there a group of stars or star power
where you're like Penn State has them?

Speaker 2 (23:21):
I mean, I think it's a bit of both.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
Obviously, if you look at a running back room like
next Singleton and k tron Aw and you go, everyone
in America would take that tandem given the opportunity. So
I think any given program is going to have its
strengths in terms of, Wow, our personnel is really good
right now. I think if you compare Penn State to itself,
you know, ten years ago or so and go, you know,
what was the issue there is they didn't really have

(23:44):
the next guy in line at every position. And obviously,
you know, every program is kind of chasing that. You know,
the thing that Ohio State has perfected for a really
long time, which is it doesn't matter that we just lost.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
You know, Marvin Harrison junior.

Speaker 5 (23:56):
We've got, you know, this guy that we can plug
in here, jeremiahs We can just put another guy in
and Penn State's maybe not there. But I think at
certain positions, running back they've done a really good job.
Tight end they've done a really good job. And yeah,
for whatever you want to parse about, you know, the
sort of lineage of Penn State football quarterbacking, they never
really had just like an outright bag college football quarterback

(24:18):
under James Franklin. When they've been at full sort of capacity,
so to speak. Obviously, defensively, you can look at linebacker
and defensive end and safety, really pretty much every position defensively.
But I think the big thing for Penn State, and
I think we've seen it with Pat Craft, is just
sort of a willingness to like I've called it the
get rich or die trying scheme, which is like there

(24:40):
had been a long sort of systemic belief at Penn State.
I think that the progress had to be sort of
gradual and careful, and you know, to Penn State's credit,
it'd found a lot of success that way in college
football and athletics at large have changed a lot over
the last twenty years that, you know, doing things methodically
worked a lot better. I think Pat Craft has said,
we're all going to die one day, we may as

(25:01):
well spend some money on our football program.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Oh yeah, And.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
I think I think that that is an area where
you know, Penn State has wanted to compete with the
Ohio States and in Michigan's, in Alabama's and teams like that,
and Georgia. You know, I think Georgia is a great
example of what happens when you decide that money is
just the figment of our imagination, of course.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
But what can you do with that?

Speaker 5 (25:23):
And I don't think Penn State's quite there, But you know,
the fact they could get Jim Knowles, I think is
a thing that doesn't happen, you know, a few years
ago under Sandy Barbara or even earlier than that. And
you know, Ohio State, of course, has spent the last
few months saying, well, we didn't want him anyway, you know,
you can have them kind of thing, and sure, how
we're true that is. At the same time, you know,
he's a highly coveted assistant coach at a position that

(25:45):
you know, I don't know Penn State really needed to replace,
Like you've made a list of things to fix. Defense
isn't won at Penn State, but they went out and
won a bidding war. And I think that that you
can replace a lot of positions, but you can't replace
mentality as an athletic department. And I think that that
is an area where they've changed two Penn States betterment holistically.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
When you look at the offense as a whole, we'll
keep it holistic. Offense was built out of Tyler Warren
last year. Are we almost undervaluing the stamp that he
was able to put on this offense? I mean, obviously
the running game was there, Obviously Drew Aller's development was there.
The offensive line continued to get better. But with the

(26:28):
receiver struggles and the different options that Tyler Warren gave
them and the gravity that he sort of imposed on
other defenses that safeties had to be over the top
and linebackers constantly had to be aware of where he
was and Nickel corners were attempting to do it. Like
can Penn State not replaced Tyler Warren? But I think

(26:50):
smoothly move into a post Tyler Warren universe is I
guess the way I would phrase.

Speaker 5 (26:55):
It, Yeah, I mean that's sort of the ten million
dollars QUI. I guess I think that you know it
was funny because I think earlier in the season last year,
I don't know that I took the Tyler Warren experience
fully seriously because if you just throw it to a
tight end a bunch of times with a bunch of
checkdowns and do things against bad teams, it's like, okay,

(27:16):
like we've established that if they had receivers to throw to,
they would do that. But sooner or later, somebody's going
to slow Tyler Warren down because like how hard is
it to slow tight end down? And that never really happened.
And I think that that was when you go like, Wow,
this is a guy who's really dynamic, a guy that
I think you know, to Andy Coulton Nicky's credit, I
think a good pairing for how you get a Swiss

(27:38):
army knife sort of offensive coordinator to work with a
Swiss army knife kind of player, and how many weird
ways can you find to use him? Do they replace him?
I think the coach speak answer, like every coach in
America says is, you know, we can't replace the really
good players. We just have to find a way to
work as a team to you know, get that production
from a bunch of different guys. I do think the

(27:58):
Penn State's proven that it can produce tight ends.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Obviously.

Speaker 5 (28:02):
I think Luke Wynolds is another guy that's going to
come in. I think Clail Dinkins is a guy that
has the ability to really flash, So, you know, from
that position, holistically, I'm sure that they will have another
good tight end or two this year. Can you do
what Tyler Warren did? You know, I don't think that
anybody can really do exactly what Tyler Warren did. He

(28:23):
was sort of like the Frankenstein's Monster of all of
the good tight ends that Penn State's had over the
last few years. Because he's not as athletic as Mike
is Sicky, but he's more physical. But he's not as
physical as Jesse James, but he's more athletic, and they
kind of melded themselves into what he became. So I
don't think you replace it, but I think they're going

(28:44):
to have to try because obviously this offense can't run
through him this year because he's not around to.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Be He's not there.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, Ben, I want to ask you a personality question
for a second, because there was a clip floating around
that a lot of people saw of j Franklin getting
into it with a fan at the spring game. We've
seen other conbustible moments, i'd say, from him over the
years that have also been caught on tape. Here is

(29:11):
a little bit of pettiness there with James frank and
I like the guy, but we've seen more than enough
of those clips to know that that's kind of working
below the surface at times. I think in the past
we have maybe chalked that up to he needs to
get the monkey off his back. He needs to beat
Ohio State in Michigan. But Penn State went to the
playoffs this year. They were, you know, three points away

(29:32):
from making the national championship game. Is the monkey off
James Franklin's back? How do we assess James Franklin's state
of mind in twenty twenty five college football?

Speaker 5 (29:45):
Yeah, I mean, welcome to the last you know, ten
years of my life, I guess.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
But yeah, I mean I don't know.

Speaker 5 (29:52):
If the monkey is off his back, I think it
would have been if they had beaten Notre Dame to
a certain extent, because I think that then you go like,
if for as good as we we can all agree,
SMU is and for as good as we can agree,
Boise State is, and et cetera, et cetera. The Notre
Dame game was a different opportunity for them and they
didn't get it done. I don't know, you know, not
to unpack that again. I don't know if you look
at that game and go like, oh, if James Franklin

(30:14):
had done this differently, they would have won. I just
think they lost a competitive football game, and that's how
it goes sometimes. But that that being said, I think
James is in a difficult spot of simultaneously knowing that
he hasn't done the one thing that everyone wants him
to do, while also knowing that Nebraska got rid of

(30:37):
bo Polini and then Nebraska sucked, and that you should
be careful what you wish for, because.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
I get it.

Speaker 5 (30:46):
You're frustrated, but also how many ten or eleven wins
seasons do you want to have and what sort of
satisfaction are you going to get from that? I think it's,
you know, challenging for him, because I think he really
just wants to be loved. You know, I don't think
James wants to Yes, I think James wants to be

(31:08):
appreciated for what they've done. I think he wants to
be appreciated for the consistency they've had. And and honestly,
you know, if somebody has given me, uh, you know,
a hard time in April, you know, maybe I give
him the finger two and go like, let's check back
in October or November, like, you know, things are doing good.
We haven't lost the game yet this year. I yeah,

(31:30):
I mean, I think Penn State football is in a
weird place because it continues to be the program that
everyone would probably like to be, but continues to be
the program that's not quite all the programs that everybody.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Really wants to be.

Speaker 5 (31:42):
So you're stuck between being better than most everyone else
but not being quite good enough. And the hard part is, well,
the only teams you have to beat are you know,
three of the regular you know, world eating programs that
are doing this to everyone in Penn sake gets the
distinct honor every year of losing by the least to
most of them. So it's that sort of issue where

(32:04):
you go, well, what else do you want from me?
I'm doing the best I can. But at the same time,
it's a winning business, and Penn Sate Football is not
spending seven hundred million dollars to renovate the stadium so
it can lose to Ohio State.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Again, I was going to ask you about the renovation.
I was going to ask you a little bit later on,
but since you brought it up, they are redoing a
good chunk of Beaver Stadium. Is the Beaver Stadium construction
going to affect the environment? The big game environment at
all this year is still gonna be a lot of people,
but the stadium footprints a little bit different. Does that
have any bearing on anything this coming season?

Speaker 5 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean I think obviously, you know, you take
the media core out of that press box, it's going
to in fact and impact the the atmosphere because you
won't be able to hear all those people up there
eating ice cream during halftime and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
But I think, like.

Speaker 5 (32:53):
More seriously, yeah, I mean I'm sure it will. I
mean they've knocked down the whole basically half of the
one side of the stadium, just from an acoustics standpoint,
there's less, you know, things to bounce noise off of.
But it's still a really big stadium. There's still a
lot of people in it. You know, is it going
to look a little funky, sure, you know, is it

(33:13):
going to be a little bit different, Yes, But you know,
at the end of the day, when it comes down
to a lot of these really good programs that Pence's
trying to be and you look at I guess Oregon
early on they're really good teams. Like when it comes
to the third quarter, they're not going to be like, wow,
there's six thousand fewer people on this side of the field,
but they're used to be. That's going to be the
deal breaker. So I think it makes a difference. I

(33:36):
do think it'll be interesting to see in the long
run what that does to the atmosphere when it's done,
because they're making it much more rich people seats, which honestly,
it's always kind of been that way.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Don't mean to cut you off. The comparison that came
to mind for me that I was actually a little
bit worried about was when they built New Yankee Stadium
and the environment completely changed. It's a beautiful place to
watch a game. It is not the same as old
Tankee Stadium. It feels different, the acoustics are different, the
atmosphere is different. Still a tough place to go and
play and win, but that's mostly because of the team

(34:08):
and not because it's deafening in there the way it
used to be.

Speaker 5 (34:11):
Yeah, I do think what will be interesting, it might
turn it into a bit of a wash, is that
when it's done, that side of the stadium. For I
think anyone who's made it this far as familiar with
Beaver Stadium's traditional layout, which is the west side is
basically one big sheet of people and then the press
box at the end of that. The new version of
it is going to have like half of that lower

(34:32):
bowl and then two upper decks above it. So something
maybe similar to Texas A and M comes to mind.
But I think anybody can picture what a two tiered
seating system can look like. I think that that's going
to hold in a lot more sound. When they moved
the student section in like the mid two thousands or
so late two thousands from where it was sort of

(34:53):
closer to the fifty yard line to underneath that south
end zone, it made it a lot louder because those
decks down there sort of trapped the noise and reflected
it back out a little bit more. So, you know,
I don't I'm sure someone at some point over the
next five or six years is going to do how
loud is it on the field? A beaver stadium thing,
because that's that makes for easy content. But I've got

(35:15):
to think that when you trap in more noise that
you might end up. They might be paying ten thousand
dollars to be there, but someone else's voice is going
to ricochet off that seat, so it could kind of
wash out. But at the end of the day, they're
going to have one hundred and somewhat thousand people, and
no matter how you do that, unless it's Michigan Stadium,
it's going to be loud. So you know, I think
they'll they'll figure it out no matter what. Michigan for

(35:37):
whatever reason, I like going to the Big House, but
it is not It is not an imposing place in
comparison a lot of places.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
This is all right, the stadium, improvements, recruiting portal, paying
your coach eight nine ten million dollars. It's all about
keeping up. It's all about what the market is demanding
of and obviously Penn State is making the stadium changes
because it seems like they're long overdue, that this is
a stadium that has needed some updating for quite some time.

(36:05):
How far off is Penn State and not just in
one sense, whether it's financially or how they're running their organization.
When you go to other places, like for the Big House,
like the Shoe, like wherever, and you see other teams
and you see other programs, are there things Penn State
internally is saying to itself, we can close the gap

(36:27):
by doing X, Y and Z. We're not that far off,
but these are the gaps we need to close. What
to you do you believe Penn State is looking at
as those gaps?

Speaker 5 (36:37):
Yeah, I mean, I think that answer has changed over
the last few years because I think from a facility standpoint,
there are always lots of things that you can improve on.
I think that Penn State's football building in general has
gotten a lot better over the last few years. They
renovated the weight room, it looks nice, They're.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Doing stuff for the field.

Speaker 5 (36:58):
There's a lot of little things, and you know, I
think sometimes it can be hard to figure out what
exactly good branding has to do with four and five.
But I do think that it sort of holistically comes
together with how you present yourself and how you recruit
and the sort of perception that people have of your program.
You know, I think beaver Stadium is Beaver Stadium. It
sort of has that Rose Bowl aesthetic of going like, well,

(37:20):
you would never build it like this if you did
it today, right, but it is the Rose Bowl, so
that makes it okay. And I think that Beaver Stadium
has certain elements of that.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Obviously. You know, I'd been to a game.

Speaker 5 (37:30):
A few years ago where the pipes to the bathrooms
in the press box froze, so you had to go
downstairs to use a trough to you know, go to
the bathroom kind of thing. So there's things that you
can go like, all right, that could be better, and
they're working on that and they're winter rizing beaver Stadium
and things there. But I think, you know, nil is
an area, and obviously that's a significant moving target on

(37:52):
a daily basis. But I do think that for Penn State,
the biggest thing for Penn State football is that no
matter how the landscape changes, Penn State's too big and
makes too much money to ever, not be a part
of whatever happens next. And I think that that puts
them a leg ahead of most programs in the country

(38:12):
because they're never going to be left for dead. Like, respectfully,
if college football decided tomorrow that it didn't need Northwestern,
that there would be no muscle to make that not happen.
That Northwestern would go like, oh gosh, well, we really
like going to the library. Anyway, I guess this is fine,
But like Penn State's always going to be a part
of whatever's next. And I think you can always go
to a peer institution and say, you know, we want

(38:34):
PS fives in our player lounge, or we want you know,
sleep deprivation chamber for whatever reason, or you know, all
these things and you add to those. I think Penn
States in the same tier as everyone else. I think
Georgia is sort of the standard. Ohio State sort of
the standard.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
But I think.

Speaker 5 (38:49):
That that holistic gap, especially over the last twenty four
months or so, has narrowed about as reasonably as a
candid any given moment.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
For the sake of balance, We've we heard a lot
about the negative fringes of Ohio State's fan base in
the sort of wake of the Michigan loss. I imagine
there's an overwhelming percentage of the Penn State fan base
that is loving life as a Penn State fan, but
also like, when are we going to win just a

(39:20):
little bit more? When is James Franklin gonna win couple
more of those games that he can't seem to with
Penn State. Is there a section of this Penn State monolith,
which it obviously isn't, that is just super happy with
winning ten eleven games a year. It could be worse.
Things have been catastrophic for Penn State off the field,

(39:41):
you know, a decade plus ago, and the reputation seems
to be in a much better place for the university
and the football program. Is there a you know, the
upper five percent, ten percent, twelve percent of this fan
base that's just like, man, things are awesome. It is
awesome to be a Penn State fan. And we are
not angry online and we are not yelling at football
games at the coach. Do those people exist just for

(40:02):
the sake of balance?

Speaker 5 (40:04):
I think they do, Okay, I mean I think you know,
to a certain extent, you know, you don't put one
hundred and ten thousand people or However, many it is
every week into a stadium because they are grumpy. You know,
I think that there has to be some base level
we have signed up for misery and we are okay

(40:24):
with that aspect of sports in general.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
You know, I'm an Eagles fan.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
Like until recently, it was a whole lot of maybe
next year, and I think that you learn to love
maybe next year in spite of this year. But I think, yeah,
there are people that I think, you know, it's an
interesting situation that Penn States in in a lot of
ways because there's a very large subset of people that
only ever had one head football coach and you sort

(40:50):
of what that experience was like. And then there's a
lot of people that have grown up in the you know,
two head football coaches at this point. I like an
NFL team and they fire their coach every other year.
I watched the Premier League and they get rid of
their managers all the time. That there is this flow
of unhappiness and we should fire everyone all the time

(41:10):
because you didn't win.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Last night.

Speaker 5 (41:13):
That I think changes how a certain subset of people
talk about sports and the longevity of like the willingness
to be like you want to build a really good
college football program. You're probably gonna have to wait a
couple of years for that to actually happen. But I
think people that you know, have been around, I think
people that understand what it could be that you know,

(41:33):
especially Penn State football fans that maybe lived through the
early two thousands of just being horrible. Like there's a
whole bunch of Penn State football fans. They've never really
experienced truly bad Penn State football. And I think for
the people that have experienced that, for people that have
watched a lot of college football, you go like, yeah,
ten or eleven wins, probably going to be in the
playoffs more often than not. That's not a bad place

(41:55):
to be. Does that mean that they're not booing on
third and seven in the second quarter against you know,
Kent State when they're going to have to punt because
we haven't figured out what they're doing on offense in
Week three? Sure, that comes with the territory. But I
do think that, you know, everybody understands what the deal
is and some people are just better at embracing it
than others.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Yeah, and to that point, Dan, I mean, I think
I told you, Yeah, my shuttle driver a couple of
weeks ago coming back from the Maza dealership was one
of these, one of the ex fans, who is just
all I do is watch Penn State football. I don't
care about your podcast. I didn't tell him aout but
the podcast, But I don't care about nationally what's going on.
I just watched Penn State on Saturdays. They've got a

(42:37):
pretty good team. They got to play in the playoff,
even though they lost to Ohio State. This is the
conversation we had that guy exists. He was happy as
a lark. Maybe we'll get him next year. But it
was definitely not a pejorative Ben right. He was looking
forward to the fact that even though they lost to
Ohio State, we still have all this to play for. Still,
we're only a couple points away from getting to the

(42:57):
title game for rematch against Ohio State. Things are looking up.
Things are looking up. So, yes, that guy is definitely
out there, Dan.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
I'm glad to hear it. I'm positive he and she are.
But I want to say actually positive with here. Just
on the same token. You don't accidentally win ten games
a year in college football. It's never been more difficult
with obviously adding in quality teams to the Big Ten,
and how good Michigan and Ohio State have been recently.

(43:25):
What is James Franklin's superpower?

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Woof?

Speaker 5 (43:31):
I mean, I think that they have a formula that
they know what works. And you know, we can make
the jokes about, oh, the games they don't win or whatnot,
but I think that he's good with relationships, He's good
with culture building. You know, I imagine that there are a
lot of things that we don't know about that happen

(43:52):
in the football building, just in terms of how you
keep everybody happy. And I'm not saying financially and just
saying in general, but I think that, you know, Penn
States had a good reputation, especially in the transfer portal era,
of pretty much keeping everybody that they wanted around, Like
there's you know, they're not a program that produces really
good players and then they all leave. Like the fact

(44:13):
that Nick Singleton and k Tron Allen are both on
the same football team for the umpteenth millionth year in
a row, during a time where they could both go
somewhere else and make a lot more money to be
by themselves, you know, it probably speaks to things we
don't know about. But I also think it speaks to
I am happy where I'm at, And I think a

(44:34):
lot of that has to do with how you build
your culture. A lot of that has to do with
you know, James has always notoriously said that, like, I
don't promise people playing time, Like he doesn't promise recruits
playing time. He doesn't promise freshmen or previous starters. I mean,
I remember a few years ago he used to say
that when Saquon was around, and he's like, except for Saquon,
Saquon's going to start. So there was like a certain

(44:56):
amount of that element. Abdul Carter is going to start.
But I think that that transparency, you kind of know
what you're getting out of that program, and I think
because of that, it's easier to buy into it. And
that doesn't mean that there aren't unhappy people or that
people don't transfer because they're not happy. But I think
the culture, I think the consistency, and I think, you know, frankly,

(45:20):
we don't talk about this as much, but Penn State
sends a lot of guys to the NFL. Like the
college football perspective, they don't win all the big games
but they're as good as anybody within reason at producing
NFL quality players. And I think that if you're a
high school football player, like what do you really care about? Like, Yeah,
it'd be nice to be to Ohio State, but also

(45:41):
it'd be nice to be abdual Carter, And one of
those things is slightly more obtainable than the other. But
I think if you are producing good players, if you
have a good atmosphere and equality experience, you're going to
be able to win a lot of football games. And
I think that that's part of the reason why some programs,
you know, have a harder time is you know, when
you just spend ten years beating people over the head

(46:03):
with a stick, nobody wants to play for you. And
that really hasn't been the best that I can tell
from the outside, and best that you would think would
bear truth over an extended period of time, not you
know what happens inside that lash building you.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Mentioned abdul Carter. Abdul Carter third. Overall, Penn State had
a very successful draft. I think we tend to look
at Penn State, as you mentioned earlier, ben as having
these defensive superstars that have emerged in the NFL over
the last couple of years, really over the last couple decades,

(46:38):
and there has been this tendency to just kind of
next man up. Right to your point from earlier, recruiting
has been strong defensively, they do have that brand. People
want to buy into that brand because it can help
put them in the league. Abdul Carter leaves. We know
they've got denied. Then as Sutton still on the roster,
it's still going to be loaded defensively. But is your

(47:00):
mindset coming into this new season that the defense, especially
now under Jim Knowles, is going to pick up where
it left off and be just as good, if not better.
We haven't talked a lot about defense because I think
we assume as fact that it will be good. But
how good in your view is this defense coming into
this new season?

Speaker 5 (47:17):
Yeah, I mean I think a little bit, like you said,
my working assumption, sort of opposite to the receivers at
this point is until Penn State has a bad defense,
I'm going to assume that it's good. The one thing
that has sort of transcended all of the change of
the last ten or fifteen years is that no matter
how many defensive coordinators or head coaches Penn State has.
It has a defensive identity that's just sort of intrinsic

(47:38):
to the program, and it finds a way to be
really good. So, you know, I don't know that the
Tom Allen experience. You know, in some ways, I think
Tom Allen got a raw deal because I think that,
like he had to come in after Brent Pry and
Manny Diaz, two of the better defensive minds in college football,
had really good players and really good success, and Tom

(48:00):
Allen was forced to do things like admit that sometimes
the defense was going to give up a first down
and occasionally the opponent was going to score points, and
that was sort of like the bar for this is
not acceptable that someone has scored more than ten points
in a game.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
That I think that that was hard.

Speaker 5 (48:18):
You know, you can't go from Manidas basically had one of,
if not the best defenses in America the year before,
and then Tom Allen's like, oh, I'm supposed to be
that good or better. That being said, I think that
I feel like this is not a new observation, but
Tom Allen's sort of a weird dude, like in his
own sort of like quirky head football coach drinks too

(48:40):
much Red Bull kind of way, sure, And I don't
know how well that jive with everything. I think it's
fair to say that the defense wasn't maybe quite quite
up to where pen Sate fans and Pensate is a
program has come to expect it to be. So I
imagine that it will be better. I think, like you said,
you know, they've got pieces to plug in there and go, Okay,
we feel good about it our base, and then that's

(49:01):
fill in from there. I think Jim Knowles, obviously you
know it'll be an interesting exercise. And how good can
you make a defense when you have all the best
defensive players in America versus how good can you make
a defense when you maybe have to work with a
few more things. And that's not to say that Jim
Knowles doesn't know what he's doing, but everything's different from
Ohio State. But I suppose you could argue that Penn
State defense is as comparable as it gets to a

(49:24):
place like Ohio State. So I don't think it'll be worse.
I don't know if it'll be markedly better, because I
still think it was fine. But yeah, until Penn State's
got a bad defense. You know, I just I don't
have it in me to say, oh, yeah, they're going
to struggle because they don't. And honestly, who is worried
about UCLA fair enough?

Speaker 1 (49:44):
Did the Knowles move surprise you.

Speaker 5 (49:47):
I would say so. I mean, I think both from
a spending perspective, you know, I think this got into
a little bit of, from from my vantage point, a
little bit of a you know what, measuring contest, because
it was like, well, we really want him, you know,
we really want him, and I think Patcraft was like,
damn it, We're going to get him, and like does
give him everything he's ever wanted. So that surprised me

(50:09):
a little bit. And I think, you know, to a
certain extent. I mean, obviously, since Penn State didn't have
a defensive coordinator, was going to need one. But if
you were going to make a list of what would
you have changed about Penn State Football's twenty four to
twenty five season, it wasn't. Well, they need to clearly
go out and get the best defensive coordinator available. They've
proven to be good with plenty of other guys. So

(50:29):
I think it surprised me a little bit just because
they could have spent less money and probably gotten similar results.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
But it's not my money. So if that's how they
want to spend it, I guess that's their.

Speaker 5 (50:41):
Richard Die trying, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly, get rich or
die trying. So it surprised me a little bit, but
at the same time I think it was It was
a big win for Penn State, and we'll see if
it's a big win for them on the field.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
I guess on that token, Penn State has had consistent
success on by and large, on both sides of the ball,
relative to a lot of teams to play college football.
And one of the interesting storylines with Jim Knowles last
year was how much he was or wasn't empowered to
run his defense, you know, sort of butting heads with

(51:12):
assistants who were there forever who had their own way
of thinking about defense. I assume that Jim Knowles is
going to be empowered to whatever extent he wants to
be empowered. For that much money, you don't pay somebody
to take notes all the time. How do you believe
he is fitting in? How do you believe he has
been empowered? Do you believe this Penn State defense is

(51:33):
actually going to look noticeably different than successful recent ones
that you know, both Manydas and Tom Allen have put
on the field.

Speaker 5 (51:42):
Yeah, I mean, I think we'll see what the specifics are.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
You know.

Speaker 5 (51:47):
I think James has been pretty consistent when it comes
to hiring coordinators in particular that you want them to
bring their identity along with them, that what made them
good is what made them good. But at the same time,
Penn State can quite obviously lean on a blueprint of
this is what our identity is, and we want you
to fit into that as well. So I think there's

(52:07):
a little bit of mix and match, because you really,
you're right, don't You don't hire a guy like Jim
Knowles to have him open up a Google doc and
say this is what Brent Pryor ran three years ago.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
We're going to do that.

Speaker 5 (52:20):
But at the same time, I do think that there's
some base concepts and base sort of identity that's going
to make Penn State football defense what it's always been
in terms of autonomy, you know, I think the whole
James Franklin Medals too Much thing is something that conveniently
comes up every time something doesn't go well. It never
comes up when it's successful. You know, it is miraculous

(52:42):
that James Franklin can be an offensive mind and meddles
so much in the defense and it works. But anytime
something bad offensively happens, it's suddenly because he won't let
them do their job. You know, is there some head
coach getting on the headset to cause not problems, but
to have input. I think Penn State pays James Franklin
a lot of money not to have input in the
middle of a crucial game. But at the same time,

(53:05):
I think that, you know, he ascribes to the notion
that these guys are the head coaches of their positions
in their units, and you know, I think that's probably
the case, and I think he'll have that autonomy. And obviously,
you know, I think we've seen historically that when things
have not gone well for Penn State, you know, Kirk
Sharaka offensively was not working out, and I think James

(53:25):
had a hand in sort of turning that around a
little bit. I think there were probably times last year
with Tom Allen. But you know, frankly, I think a
head coach has got too much stuff to do to
really like get in the way of your offensive meetings
on a real significant basis every day and every week.
So I would anticipate the gym knowles they're paying him
a lot of money to go do what he does,

(53:46):
and I imagine that that's going to be the case.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
We've spent a majority of this time, as my final question,
talking about why things have worked out really, really well
for Penn State over these past few years. Why Penn
State has thought of to be a top one, two, three,
four type team in the nation this year. If they're not,
If Penn State is merely good but not really good
or great, if they are a nine and three team,

(54:10):
god forbid, they lose three games this year, what's the reason?

Speaker 5 (54:17):
I mean, if we throw out the the injury thing, sure,
I think obviously like everyone gets hurt and they suck.
If you get rid of that sort of caveat, I mean,
I think it comes down to the receivers don't quite
step up, and the guys that aren't Tyler Warren aren't
Tyler Warren.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
You know.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
I think in this day and age, you've got to
be a diverse team. Offensively, I think Nick Singleton and
k Tron Allen can get you pretty far, but they
can only do so much.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
You've got to be diverse.

Speaker 5 (54:48):
So I think if they don't win those games, you know,
it's a product of they're not developing in the areas
that they need to. But you look at the schedule,
I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think Iowa
is one of those games that's perpetually overlooked by people
who don't watch Big ten football because Iowa is just
like a hellscape place to play. But yeah, I mean,

(55:09):
other than Oregon, Iowa, Ohio State, and maybe just sort
of like frustratingly unconstipated Michigan State in the middle of November,
there's not a lot of games that you go like,
they should lose that, or they could lose that. I
think probably more realistically so to me, they've got to
have some pretty systemic issues to go nine to three.

(55:30):
And I think that Penn State has proven that they
can find ways to beat everyone that they should. I
think that that has been their strength, that whatever their
weaknesses are against equal or better teams, that Penn State
really does not lose the games that it shouldn't. And
I think even they've done that with teams that are
not as highly regarded as this one might be. So

(55:52):
for them to fail. I think they'd have to just
really not have it together. And you know, frankly, I
don't think that there's a and to believe that that'll
be the case.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
You can find his work Ben Jones on Penn State
dot substack dot com. Did I get that right?

Speaker 2 (56:09):
Ben?

Speaker 1 (56:09):
I believe that's the RL.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
I think that's I think that was right and it's
close enough for me and I right.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
There, so beautiful. Go and check out Ben's work. Support
what he does. Always thoughtful. I love your commentary. You
do an awesome job. Thank you again for giving us
so much of your time. We'll talk again soon. I
appreciate your fellows. Go birds. All right there, you go,
Go and check out Ben's work. Ben Jones on Penn
State dot substack dot com. Always pleasure to have him

(56:36):
with us here on the program. What do you think
of Penn State football right now? What do you think
of these expectations that have been It sounds like I'm
being negative about this but foisted on them?

Speaker 4 (56:50):
Yeah, too much?

Speaker 3 (56:52):
No, because you look at the teams that they are
being compared against, and there's more that it's familiar and
returning about Penn State and more that when you look
at what's been added to Penn State, notably, Jim Knowles,
you understand what you're getting. Jim Knowles, you are likely
getting one of the five best defenses in America considering
what Penn State brings back. And it's always been my

(57:14):
opinion that the best teams have the best combination of
defense and quarterback. And it's hard to argue even with
Penn State's results throwing the ball against Notre Dame in
their final game of the season, that yes, we expect
Texas's defense to be very good, and we expect arch
Manning to be very good. We expect Oregon and Dante
more and their Oregon's defense to be a good combination.
We expect Georgia's defense and the development of Gunner Stockton

(57:37):
to be very impressive. We expect a lot of these
things from a lot of the powers. We expect Julian
Sayin to develop into a very good quarterback. I don't
think he's officially been named the starter Ohio State, but
he's the expected starter. And even with what Ohio State
is returning on defense and not returning on defense, we
expect it to be quality. But there just seems to
be more known about Penn State with that combination, and

(58:00):
you add in the running backs, you add in the
offensive line, you add in the pass rushers, and the
potential star power on this defense. Even with losing, you know,
Abdul Carter and Kobe King's gun right right, they had.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
Losses on all three levels.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
James Franklin has earned the benefit of doubt that he
is going to field a ten plus win team. And
this sport is very good at giving us teams that
seem like that they've hit that that seems as if
they've hit a ceiling at eight, nine, ten, eleven wins
or whatever, and then there are just special lightning in
a bottle years. And the understanding is that Penn State

(58:34):
is one a candidate to be that kind of team
this year, more so than many others.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
The two biggest games in this schedule are end of
September at home against Oregon and the beginning of November
on the road against Ohio State. There are other games
on this thing that could be interesting. Right at UCLA
with Niko I. I don't think Penn States should lose
that game, but it's a little bit more interesting now
than it was at Iowa. Ben mentioned what a hellscape

(59:02):
that has been for Penn State. He is correct in
saying that they also get Indiana at home a week
after that Ohio State game.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
That's tricky.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Looks like, you know, I don't know how high or
or not we should be on Indiana. We'll get to
that at some point in July talk through exactly what
we think of the Hoosiers this year. But they're going
to be better than the old Indiana for sure. I
think we've kind of arrived at this point though, where
anything worse than ten and two, to the question you
asked Ben, anything worse than ten and two, it kind

(59:35):
of feels like a disaster. So I'm not rooting for
that obviously, But you come into this season, I think,
with a pretty high floor. If you're a Penn State, right,
it should be ten and two worst case scenario, given
what's coming back and what's on this schedule. I don't
want to deal with the possibility of the fact that

(59:58):
they could go nine and three. There's potential before that,
but coming into this year, you feel pretty good. You
feel pretty good, and if all goes well, even if
they do end up going ten to two and can't
knock off one of those two quote unquote better teams.
It should still be a playoff team. They should be
playing for this thing again.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
And it actually feels like you have to go way
back to twenty twenty three when Penn State coming off
of the Utah Rose Bowl win and bringing back as
much as they were, They're like, what's this the best
team in the country? And they lose too Michigan and
Ohio State, And so there is that obviously a reasonable
conversation we had that is Penn State simply a business

(01:00:39):
class program. That sure, they're flying to Geneva, and it's
a beautiful plane and they have business class seats and
it's a much better place to be on the plane
than everybody flying coach now. But they can't help but
notice that the people in front of them have warmer cookies,
warmer towels, and there's just a little bit more bite

(01:01:00):
to that champagne that they're getting up there in first class,
and that Penn State under James Franklin is doomed to
have tepid chocolate chip cookies.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Oh my gosh, so many, so many metaphors going.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Thank you very much, similar metaphors.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
I don't know, but no, it's they're they're unique in
that position because there are there have been other teams
in that position that have broken through for one special year,
and Penn State is just still looking for that one
special year. And there have been really good years. There
have been years that end up in the Rose Bowl,
ended up in the playoff, and you know, but it's

(01:01:37):
just the like just a little more. There's just there
needs to be a little bit more hot fudge on
that Sunday I'm hungry.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Excuse me as you apparently also do not remember from
elementary school. Similes are comparisons that use like or as
or as, Yes, metaphors. Metaphors are a little bit more
theater than mine.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Dan, Right, well, I'm saying when I said similar though,
I said, it's like, oh, it's like I didn't catch
the like in there. Okay, so maybe maybe it was
an implied like time some jerseys. That's fine anyway, Look
right in, we have a lot of Penn Staters that
listen to the show.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
I'm curious to get your input on these expectations. I
think that's what I'm reacting to the most, and that's
what I reacted to the most when we decided to
put the show together. Ari Wasserman took a dump on us. Okay,
I love Ari. He took a dump though, on the
Penn State that by putting these expectations on Penn State.

Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
Oh yeah, No, I've seen a couple of places. I
think it's not just.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
It's Mark Schleybaugh I think did it as well. You know,
they're being complementary at Penn State. And at the same time,
I kind of don't want to take that compliment because
I'm afraid, right, that's what I'm saying. So, yes, it
should be a good team, but I am frankly a
little bit nervous about what that means, what that means
if they don't get to that level. That's where I'm
at as a very superstitious fan.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Yeah, I mean, look, the second halves specifically of the
Oregon and the Ohio State games will be fascinating because
those both of those games last season. They don't have
Michigan this year. Right, it's a different Michigan program right now.
But those are the two circled games, and those are
two games last season in which there was a weird

(01:03:15):
uneven It was a quick start for Penn State last year. Right,
they had an early pick six. I want to say,
or interception that set something up. I have to go
back and watch, but they were in a nice position
and when Ohio State adjusted and they were more successful
on offense, Penn State couldn't counter. Penn State didn't have
an offensive touchdown in that game, right right, And then

(01:03:36):
in the Oregon game, it's just back and forth, back
and forth.

Speaker 4 (01:03:39):
Oregon.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
You know, they have a key interception that leads to
a very like a one yard touchdown, and Penn State
in the second half it was just a couple of
times where they couldn't keep a drive going and Oregon
was able to sustain drives and couldn't get it done.
It's just that second half. Okay, we see what this
team is doing and going for game plan wise, here's
our counter. Yeah, and Penn State fell short of that

(01:04:03):
last year obviously fell short against Notre Dame. But that
game is crazy tight, back and forth at the game.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
That was a winnable game for Penn State. In a
different universe, they do win that game.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
Something that I was reminded of during draft time. I
think just because so many things are happening all the
time in life. Abdul Carter playing like at forty percent
and being effective, oh yeah in the playoff, like the
injuries he was dealing with. You know, obviously the offensive
issues were what they were against Notre Dame in general

(01:04:33):
later on in the season. But they should be in
a really nice place this year.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Listen, people are going to listen to what I just said,
and they're gonna be like, what are you an idiot?
Would you not want to be ranked number one?

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
That is not what I'm saying. It just frightens me
whenever you put those kind of expectations on a different number. Yeah,
it feels the heavy is the head that wears that
crown in the preseason especially, and so yeah, it worries
me that they can't get to that level. But it
should be a good team. It should be a fun season,
and the schedule sets up well, there's a lot there
for them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
You've been making an argument that their combination of coordinators
is if it's not the best in the country, it's impactable,
one of the best three, best four. It's all I mean,
it's just things have aligned very nicely for Penn State,
and it definitely feels like if not now when I'm
with you and it look it can happen in three years.

Speaker 4 (01:05:28):
It can.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
I don't know who's next the quarterback for Penn State,
but it feels as ready made in white glove as
any team has had it that hasn't broken through lately.

Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
People are really big on Ethan Grunkeemeier.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
So is that true good name?

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Very good name? More importantly, and we can close with this,
thank you to everybody for downloading, for listening, for supporting,
going out to for bowlers dot com for more. The
clock is ticking now. We're recording this on Thursday, May
the twenty second. I have not gone on out to
days until to get the official daycount for how long
it will be until that game, Penn State hosting Oregon

(01:06:06):
on September the twenty seventh.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
All right, I'll look it up right now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Okay, but I would say roughly, you and I have
about four months to figure out how the hell logistically
we're going to pull this off. Because you booked the flight.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):
You said September twenty seventh. September twenty seventh, I did
book the flight. You booked the flight thinking about it.
If it were a night game, you're flying in the
night game.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Element of this could definitely throw a bit of a
monkey wrench in our normal plans, which is we're going
to do the midnight live stream. We still want to
do the midnight live stream. We just need a little
bit of help from the community to figure out how
we could do all of these things. Go to the game,
enjoy you know, Penn State versus Oregon, and still I'm

(01:06:48):
assuming somewhere up in State College. If it is a
night game, do the midnight broadcast. So if anybody out
there has any ideas Solidverblo.

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
Well as such as that, it's I got to figure
out how to get back home and how to get
back home. We have three thousand and seventy two hours
to devise an itinerary, provided that I think NBC is
broadcasting that game at seven or seven thirty Eastern.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Which means inevitably that you and I will save this
until the final seventy two hours of figure out whatever costs. Yes, obviously, yes,
Solidverbalt Gmail dot com. If you have any ideas, we'd
appreciate that. All right, Thanks again to Ben Jones for
stopping on by. We appreciate his insight as always, go
and check him out. Ben Jones on PennState dot substack
dot com. You can of course check us out Solid

(01:07:33):
verbal dot com, hit follow, hit subscribe wherever it is
you are listening to this episode. We'll be here all
off season. Have a happy Memorial Day if you're here
in the States. In the meantime, until next time, I
am Ty. He is Dan. As always, you know, the
drill State, Solid Peace,

All Episodes

Penn State's Great Expectations with Ben Jones - 2025 College Football Podcast

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Penn State's Great Expectations with Ben Jones - 2025 College Football Podcast