Penn State's James Franklin is right about scheduling, even with expansion [opinion]

Oct. 11—James Franklin has made his position on scheduling non-conference games abundantly clear over the last several years.

When he reiterated his opinion Tuesday at his weekly press conference in response to a question and it reverberated across the country, it was quite a surprise.

"I don't think the (Penn State) philosophy or the model has changed," Franklin said. "You've got to do whatever you possibly can to give yourself a chance to be undefeated at the end of the (regular) season. ..If you're not scheduling to be undefeated, you're scheduling to have the least amount of losses possible to give yourself a chance to be in the playoffs."

He's right. Look at the four College Football Playoff teams last year. Georgia, TCU, Ohio State and Michigan all deserved their semifinal berths, but their non-conference schedules were far from imposing.

The Bulldogs played non-conference games against Oregon, Samford, Kent State and Georgia Tech. The Horned Frogs' non-conference opponents were Colorado, Tarleton State and SMU.

The Buckeyes took on Notre Dame, Arkansas State and Toledo, and the Wolverines played Colorado State, Hawaii and Connecticut.

Penn State's non-conference schedules have been on par with those for almost a decade.

So when Franklin alluded to the non-conference schedule for "another team in this conference that has had a ton of success the last couple of years," he wasn't criticizing two-time defending Big Ten champ Michigan; he was pointing out that the Lions have a similar philosophy.

The college football landscape will be different next year. The CFP will expand from four teams to 12, and the Big Ten will grow from 14 teams to 18 with the addition of Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington.

Next season, Penn State will play home games against Ohio State, UCLA and Washington and road games at USC and Wisconsin. Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, USC and Washington will have similar conference schedules.

Those are much more rugged than the ones those schools have this season, which is why Franklin believes more teams, at least in the Big Ten, will seek to soften their future non-conference schedules, even with the larger CFP field.

"There's a team in this conference specifically that's buying out a ton of game contracts that are already signed," he said without identifying which school that would be. "I don't think it's changed. I would say you could even make the argument (that) it's magnified.

"That's why people are changing their schedules because you look at who people are going to play just in our conference. It's going to be even more challenging than it's ever been."

Penn State has had one Power Five non-conference opponent on every schedule since 2015 when it was still dealing with the NCAA sanctions.

The Lions will play at West Virginia next year and will have a home-and-home series with Syracuse in 2027-28. They have Marshall, Temple and Buffalo in 2026 and Nevada and Villanova in 2025, for now. A major conference opponent will not likely fill that last opening.

"In terms of the model that we're using here at Penn State, I don't think it has changed," Franklin said. "I've been pretty clear on where we should schedule and how we should schedule philosophically and I think the data backs that up."

He was referring to the fact that no team with more than one loss has made the four-team CFP. He surprisingly did not mention the disparity in the number of conference games played across the country.

For example, the Big Ten and the Big 12 play nine conference games apiece and the Southeastern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference play eight. That's another reason to not schedule marquee non-conference matchups, like the home-and-home Penn State had with Auburn in 2021-22.

The Lions became the first Big Ten team to play at the Tigers' Jordan-Hare Stadium since it opened in 1935 and could be the last. Franklin made it clear the Lions wouldn't be back.

"There's a reason that this is one of the only games that's been scheduled in the history of the Big Ten," Franklin said immediately after Penn State's 41-12 win last year. "All the data and all the analytics show you've got to do whatever you can to win your conference."

Which will be even more difficult starting in 2024.