Opinion| Penn State’s Post-Bye-Week Struggles Aren’t Actually About the Bye-Week

Homecoming. Generations of Greatness. UMass.

Those three topics, which will combine into one this weekend, are the ones you’ll find garnering most of the attention from the media and fans as No. 6 Penn State gets set to host UMass on Saturday afternoon at Beaver Stadium. And although a noon kickoff against No. 3 Ohio State for one week later made headlines on Monday morning, one topic has not been at the forefront like years past: Penn State’s post-bye week struggles.

For the past couple of seasons and whenever the Nittany Lions have a weekend off, the notion that James Franklin-coached teams cannot win following a bye week has taken precedence around the program, and rightfully so. The Nittany Lions have gone just 3-7 when competing in those situations during the Franklin era, including a three-game losing streak with the extra week of preparation dating back to a 59-0 Friday night win over Maryland in 2019.

Then why is it different this year?

The answer is simple: the opponent.

The Minutemen are 1-6 this season, with their lone win coming in their season-opener against New Mexico State. Since then, UMass has lost six games, including a 41-24 loss to Toledo in their game this past weekend.

In the aforementioned 10 post-bye week contests with Franklin at the helm, Penn State has only played conference opponents and in those games, has played six ranked opponents, five of them being in the way of Michigan and Ohio State. The lone outlier was No. 17 Minnesota in 2019 following the Nittany Lions’ second bye of the campaign. Not to mention that of those six matchups against top-25 teams, the blue and white was the lower-ranked team in four of them.

As for their four games against unranked opponents, three of which have come in the previous five seasons dating back to 2018, the Nittany Lions are just 1-3. To make matters worse, Penn State is 0-2 against ranked opponents when it finds itself within the top eight teams in the country coming off a break.

While it is feasible to chalk the first of the three unranked losses, which came against Michigan in 2014, up to the growing pains of Franklin’s first season in Happy Valley, I won’t hide from the fact that loss to an unranked Michigan State team in 2018 and a nine-overtime loss to Illinois in 2021 were causes for major concern.

People will argue that the loss to the Fighting Illini was in part due to Sean Clifford laboring through an injury suffered against No. 3 Iowa before the bye or maybe even the weather (This is when I advise against looking at the weather forecast for this Saturday because it’s eerily similar). Regardless of counterarguments, the No. 7 team in the country should have been prepared for all of that, especially considering the extra week to prepare.

Four games isn’t a sample size in which I can be comfortable saying that a post-bye week issue exists for Franklin, but I look at it through a different lens.

I’ve already mentioned the six post-bye week matchups against ranked opponents, which Penn State has gone 2-4 in. Overall, during Franklin’s tenure, the Nittany Lions are 12-23 versus ranked opponents, meaning the Nittany Lions are nearly right on script coming out of the bye.

Not only are the Nittany Lions 2-4 coming out of the bye week with a ranked matchup, but they are also 2-4 against the Buckeyes and Wolverines off the bye.

During his time in University Park, the now tenth-year head coach is 4-14 against those Big Ten East foes, despite a small sample size, the blue and white are actually ahead of its “norm” when the games come after an off-week. The team that calls Beaver Stadium home is 1-8 against Ohio State, with the lone win coming off the bye in 2016, and 3-6 against Michigan, with Franklin running the show.

That win over the Buckeyes in 2016 was Franklin’s last win over a top-10 opponent before the Rose Bowl against No. 10 Utah in January. If you allow me to get technical, that would be another victory coming off the bye week, or in this case, a bye month, as the Nittany Lions hadn’t played since November 26.

Penn State can be slightly better against Michigan and Ohio State coming off the bye week, but people can still have their concerns because of the other matchups. I believe this week will ease those concerns. Something has lined up in the opposite advantage of Penn State in its last couple of unranked games out of the bye, but this year, all signs point to all systems go.

Even though a 1-6 UMass team might not be the best barometer coming off a bye, whether the schedule had read UMass, Michigan, Ohio State or someone else, the Nittany Lions would still have just one goal: 1-0.

“Whether we were playing a conference team this week or a non-conference team, we’d have to find a way to get a win,” Franklin said during post-practice availability last week.

Justin Ciavolella is a third-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jtc5751@psu.edu.