James Franklin teams coming off the bye week.
Had a couple free minutes so I thought I would look back at James Franklin's record coming off bye weeks. I value this measure because this is more of a reflection of trends in a program than a snapshot of a team that is in flux from year to year.
Outside of the obvious that Penn State seemingly gets the benefit of a bye before a marquee matchup. It doesn't seem as though Franklin's teams are very prepared when the rubber meets the road.
Overall a 3-6 record (33%) coming off a bye and 1-3 on the road off a bye. The lone win on the road coming against Maryland who went 3-9 that season FWIW. Below are how the results have panned out.
October 12th, 2022 at 2:53 PM ^
Image link works now. 3-4 of those 6 losses look pretty forgivable given the competition.
October 12th, 2022 at 2:55 PM ^
It's in the attachment / snippet at the bottom of OP
Ls to UM (x2), OSU, MSU, MINN and ILL
October 12th, 2022 at 2:57 PM ^
Thanks. I edited once it loaded.
October 12th, 2022 at 2:57 PM ^
Click the link at the bottom of the post. It's in excel form. Losses were as follows:
2014 @ Michigan, (H) Ohio State
2015 @ Michigan
2018 @ MSU
2019 @ Minny
2021 (H) Illinois (9 OT)
October 12th, 2022 at 4:16 PM ^
The 2018 MSU loss was at home in Happy Valley
October 12th, 2022 at 4:20 PM ^
As was the 2015 loss to Michigan.
October 13th, 2022 at 10:33 AM ^
2016 was at home and featured a sad field goal. brian wrote a great piece asking frames janklin whether he reads the bible. this is a fond memory.
October 12th, 2022 at 5:55 PM ^
I had forgotten that we somehow managed to beat Penn State during that otherwise disastrous 2014 season. How about that.
October 12th, 2022 at 8:37 PM ^
I remember that one. Well, not so much the game itself (that's a bit fuzzy) but I remember that it was a night game in early October, and was really cold - fans were in full winter gear.
October 12th, 2022 at 9:32 PM ^
Here's what I remember from that game (other than pretty slick all blue unis--the first time I remember us wearing blue pants with the blue jersey): pretty much the worst clock management (by Frames, of course) I've ever seen.
We're up 3 late in the game, just under 2:30 left. Penn St. has the ball, but it's 4th down deep in their own end, and the clock's running (we sacked them on 3rd down). Frames lets over 30 seconds run off the clock before finally calling a timeout, whereupon he decides that instead of punting out of the back of the endzone and trying to stop us to get the ball back, they take an intentional safety to try the onside kick. Now we're up 5 (FG no longer helps them), we recover the onside kick, game over.
If they just punted it, they have 2 TOs and over 2:00 left. Stop us and they'd have around a minute to drive to FG range. Or just take the safety immediately. But don't waste the time, and the TO, just to take the safety. Dumbest thing I've ever seen.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:07 PM ^
Does that mean they should be forgiven Sat night?
October 12th, 2022 at 3:12 PM ^
And that tradition demands we beat them on Saturday.
And CFB is all about tradition so….let’s not break it.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:22 PM ^
We shouldn't need nine (!) OT's to get the job done.
October 12th, 2022 at 8:13 PM ^
We field goals on 1st down not allowed? Seriously how many would our guy have on 9 tries?
October 12th, 2022 at 8:41 PM ^
No, they're not. After the second overtime, all you can do is run two-point conversions. Hence, last year's ridiculous PSU/Illinois 9-OT game.
October 12th, 2022 at 8:42 PM ^
Under the new OT rules, from the third OT on, teams get a single 2-point try on each possession. No field goals allowed.
October 13th, 2022 at 12:48 AM ^
Understanding that fg’s are not allowed in the 3rd ot and beyond, can you still line up in FG formation and then run a fake?
Didn’t they try a fake fg against us recently when everyone knew they were going to fake it?
October 12th, 2022 at 2:54 PM ^
Thanks for posting -- let's help Frames out and keep the trend going Saturday
October 12th, 2022 at 2:55 PM ^
Image embedded for ease of viewing.
October 12th, 2022 at 2:57 PM ^
Thank you
October 12th, 2022 at 2:58 PM ^
Did you feel dirty typing "2021, Illinois 20-18 (9 OT)"? I did.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:00 PM ^
I feel dirty just reading it.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:06 PM ^
Hey babe, I wanna score 20 points tonight like Illinois did in 9 overtimes against Penn State in 2021.....
Has a nice ring to it. I'll let the board know how that line goes with the mgowife.
October 12th, 2022 at 4:02 PM ^
has the ring of success to it. you'll be welcoming more little elbels into the world in 9 months....
October 12th, 2022 at 3:18 PM ^
That is just astounding for the score to be only 10-8 in 9 OTs. Yes, 2 pt. conversion rule, but no TDs for either team during the first OTs and then only 3 2-point conversions out of 14 attempts by both teams. And Brandon Peters!
October 12th, 2022 at 4:19 PM ^
I like the idea that Franklin spent the entire bye before Illinois coming up with new 2-point plays
October 12th, 2022 at 3:24 PM ^
PSU and opposing bye week team final records. Team (Conf Rec, Overall Rec). Winning team bolded
2014:
- PSU (2-6, 7-6)
- Michigan (3-5, 5-7) - two not very good teams and the home team won
- osu (8-0, 14-1)
2015:
- PSU (4-4, 7-6)
- Michigan (6-2, 10-3)
2016:
- PSU (8-1, 11-3)
- osu (8-1, 11-2)
- Note: Michigan won 49-10 in AA, but it wasn't after a bye week
2017:
- PSU (7-2, 11-2)
- Michigan (5-4, 8-5)
2018:
- PSU (6-3, 9-4)
- msu (5-4, 7-6)
2019:
- PSU (7-2, 11-2) (beat MD, lost to MN)
- Maryland (1-8, 3-9)
- Minnesota (7-2, 11-2)
2020:
- ಠ_ಠ
2021:
- PSU (4-5, 7-6)
- Illinois (4-5, 5-7)
So what does this tell us?
That PSU generally beats those they are supposed to beat (2017 Michigan, 2019 MD), but also generally loses competitive games against equal or better teams (2014 Michigan, 2014 osu, 2015 Michigan, 2018 msu, 2019 Minnesota, 2021 Illinois).
Somehow, PSU doesn't really scare me this time around. Maybe it's because I'm not paying attention to them, but can't wait to read up on the FFFF and opponent previews this week.
I think they're overrated, but will still somehow manage a 9-3 season.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:01 PM ^
not sure why your picture didnt embed. here it is for others
edit: lol i can't get it to show either. maybe something goofy with the website
October 12th, 2022 at 3:02 PM ^
That photo is MgoKryptonite.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:02 PM ^
Maybe the issue is the number of Frames in it.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:30 PM ^
I see what you did there dot png
October 12th, 2022 at 3:48 PM ^
So, I looked at the image URL in the OP, it is HUNDREDS of characters long. Not sure why. But it returned a "URL too long for Server" error (which is to be expected). Weird.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:02 PM ^
Ask ol' Jimmer if Penn St is a buy, or a bye
October 12th, 2022 at 3:03 PM ^
My takeaway from the chart is you want to face James Franklin off of a bye
October 12th, 2022 at 3:46 PM ^
So, the more time Frames has to coach his team the worse they get? Checks out.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:04 PM ^
I like it.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:05 PM ^
Interesting post — good use of spare time.
While the overall record isn’t good, the losses were generally close. Only one loss was decided by more than a touchdown (Michigan, 28-16 in 2015), and two games went to overtime.
In other words, only going by Penn State’s history, we should win a nailbiter on Saturday.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:06 PM ^
By(e) comparison, JH Michigan teams are 5-2 off a bye (1-0 against PSU -- 2018), with the losses coming at home to MSU in 2017 and at Wisconsin in 2019
October 12th, 2022 at 4:29 PM ^
Another perhaps relevant stat:
Harbaugh is 39-0 in front of a full Michigan Stadium (i.e. non-covid) vs teams not named OSU/MSU
October 12th, 2022 at 3:10 PM ^
Good stuff. My feeling about PSU is that they are a top-15-20 team most years but they don't usually beat teams that are better than them, bye or not. They crushed UM in 2017 because they were significantly better than that mediocre UM team, and other than the insane 2016 win over OSU in which they were outgained by 100 yards but got a big kick block they've mostly lost to the better teams and beaten the worse ones.
To me Franklin feels like a league-average QB - my go-to reference now is Kirk Cousins but there are others - who perform exactly as well as the talent he has around him dictates. Franklin rarely has even good offensive lines so he's always asking his playmakers to out-talent everyone on offense and his defense has been pretty consistently good (we'll see how that holds up without Brent Pry as he's now the head coach at VT) so he can hang with most teams.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:30 PM ^
don't most teams beat the worse ones and lose to the better ones? not trying to be cheeky here. The only teams to regulary beat top 10 opponents are top 5 teams. and Purdue. and Iowa in Kinnick - but even that latter example is because Iowa is better than most on defense and may be the only program in America that actually creates turnovers. Don't get me wrong - Brady Hoke and RIch Rod regularly struggling with bad teams is a thing I'm happy to be rid of. But those teams were...well not that much worse than Michigan at the time, sadly. We all remember the upsets, because they make the sport delightful. But the norm is to beat the teams worse than you and lose to the ones better than you.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:42 PM ^
I think what he means is rarely, if ever, do you play Penn State and it all of the sudden dawns on you that "hey these guys really are good" nor do you pummel a version of them that you think is better than they are. You either get beat by them exactly the way you would expect to get beat or you exploit the precise weakness that you anticipate. In that way I kind of feel like he is kind of the antithesis of Harbaugh. 2015 Northwestern really had no reason at all to think they were walking into the whirlwind that engulfed them, nor did 2018 Ohio State likely have "murder Michigan because they can't generate any pass rush and can't cover" as one of the possible outcomes. With Penn State, they seem to be precisely what they appear to be when you face them every year. And all of Franklin's coaching decisions balance out to be exactly average. He does some pretty brilliant things and some completely asinine things in every game, but at the end of the day, it is always.... about, average.
October 12th, 2022 at 4:03 PM ^
Yeah, this is a good distillation of PSU under Franklin - they are exactly what they say on the tin. 2017 was "Barkley and McSorley are really good and UM is starting John O'Korn and he's barely holding on". By comparison, 2018 was "Michigan can pass rush and PSU still can't block anyone to save their lives". Last year was actually the first time I was surprised by how that game went since I figured UM's ends would just crush Clifford, which I guess they did in the end but not before he had more success throwing and running than I expected. At the same time, that was a game where the refs seemingly turned off holding so maybe not a shock.
This year PSU wins if Colson and co. can't tackle in open space and PSU's backs get into the open field. But if that doesn't happen I don't see Clifford marching up and down the field, nor do I see Franklin scheming anything up to make that happen.
October 13th, 2022 at 3:54 AM ^
“and PSU's backs get into the open field.”
Singleton is going to be a problem if he gets any kind of crease.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:57 PM ^
I guess my point is that PSU doesn't sometimes pull off the unexpected. Michigan and OSU were about equal last year in terms of overall talent and UM housed the Buckeyes. PSU's biggest wins of the Franklin era are that 2016 game against OSU that they barely got away with, and...what? Barely beating Wisconsin in 2016 to win the BTCG? Almost beating OSU in 2017 and 2018?
And in a lot of their wins it's close calls - from 2016 through 2019 they went 13-8 in 1-score games; for comparison Michigan went 5-7. So on one hand he's won more close games but on the other hand he's doing it against the likes of App. St., and mediocre Iowa and NW teams. Michigan doesn't have a great record but they don't generally play in as many close games - they beat the snot out of the bad teams and then can lose some close games against good teams (and in some circumstances get housed by the OSUs and pissed-of Florida's of the world).
I guess the way I'd describe PSU is that they're good enough to scare a good team but aren't consistent enough to beat them. And even this year they've been in dog fights with teams like Purdue and NW, and even the Auburn final score (41-12) belies the fact the Tigers were basically even with PSU in terms of yardage and just shot themselves in the foot in the redzone.
October 12th, 2022 at 8:28 PM ^
Fact check on Auburn. No, Penn State dominated that game. Outgained Auburn terribly on a yard/play basis. Connelly's post game win expectancy was 99.7% PSU. Don't try to make it sound close.
No, Auburn had 4 red zone trips and settled for 2 fg and no touchdowns. Even if Auburn scores TDs on all four red zone trips, they still lose 34-41.
Also, "basically even with PSU in terms of yardage." Nah...PSU had outgained Auburn by about 150 yards. Then, with 1:55 left, Auburn moves 83 yards against PSU's third string defense. Garbage time. Technically, they got outgained by 62 yards in the end, but it was closer to 100-150 yard deficit.
October 14th, 2022 at 1:04 PM ^
I don't know, it seems like there are a handful of programs in CFB that are inexplicably worse than they should be on paper. "They have all the pieces, they have a proven coach, why are they just mediocre?" Texas and Tennessee, in recent years, have fit that mold.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:11 PM ^
I really think people overvalue any "trends" they see of teams coming out of bye weeks. There are too many variables at play for the data to really mean anything, and the sample sizes are too small.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:16 PM ^
I tend to think it has more to do with the program and their ops and use of time in the bye week. Sure there are variables but as I stated above, many times Penn State had the benefit of playing marquee games off the bye. Shouldn't they be more prepared? Conversely, they come out flat off bye weeks.
October 12th, 2022 at 3:25 PM ^
Sometimes in life you aren't given robust data sets, but you know what? You just have to go ahead and try to make some sense of what you've got. The OP did that here, and I say well done sir.