ALTOONA, Pa. -- Penn State doesn't beat Ohio State very often -- who does, really? -- but the Nittany Lions almost always give the Buckeyes as good of a battle as anybody they face.
Now, that's a double-edged sword. Because Penn State fans don't want to hear about moral victories against Ohio State, and yet, there is a reality that the Buckeyes pretty much always have the better team, so there shouldn't be a great expectation that the Lions will win any given game.
Penn State has lost the last five meetings and nine of the past 10 against the Buckeyes. The series was pretty even and competitive through 2001 -- Penn State led the all-time head-to-head matchup 10-6 at that point -- but Ohio State has dominated since then, going 16-4.
As of right now, Ohio State is favored by 15.5 points to make it six wins in a row over Penn State come Saturday afternoon at Beaver Stadium. The Buckeyes are ranked No. 2, they have the Heisman Trophy frontrunner in quarterback C.J. Stroud, and many people view them as the favorite to win the national title.
So, No. 13 Penn State doesn't stand much of a chance in this one, right?
Well, you might want to think again.
Here are results from the last 10 meetings between the teams:
2021: Ohio State 33-24
2020: Ohio State 38-25*
2019: Ohio State 28-17
2018: Ohio State 27-26*
2017: Ohio State 39-38
2016: Penn State 24-21*
2015: Ohio State 38-10
2014: Ohio State 31-24*
2013: Ohio State 63-14
2012: Ohio State 35-23*
*--Home game for PSU
The 2016 victory, of course, brought Penn State back to national prominence.
The brutal 2017 loss saw the Lions, ranked No. 2, squander a 35-20 lead in the fourth quarter in Columbus.
The disappointing 2018 loss brought about James Franklin's infamous postgame "elite" comment. I'll have much more on that tomorrow in the midweek top 10.
Last year, despite being a 19.5-point underdog, Penn State trailed just 27-24 midway through the fourth quarter before falling, 33-24, in Columbus.
There can be no doubt that Franklin and Penn State have tried to do everything they could over the years in order to catch up to Ohio State. The Lions not only have recruited well, they have recruited in a way to be able to fill up the roster with the kind of players who can compete with, and hopefully beat, the Buckeyes.
That means a combination of size, speed, strength and other factors.
The Buckeyes play a certain way -- a balanced mixture of passing with an often great quarterback coupled with a strong running game -- and so Penn State has tried to find players to compete with that.
And if you've watched the games over the years -- even the losses -- it's been pretty clear that the Lions have indeed matched up well against the Buckeyes from a personnel standpoint.
But a lot of that has come with a catch. And the catch here is that, while building a roster to be able to compete with the top dog Ohio State, Penn State has lost a lot of ground to another Big Ten powerhouse -- Michigan.
That's because Michigan plays a different style than Ohio State. The Wolverines have become one of the great power running programs in the country under Jim Harbaugh, and we saw it first hand two weeks ago when Michigan ran for 418 yards and pummeled Penn State, 41-17.
All of this led me to ask Franklin a very specific question Tuesday afternoon. It's something I've wanted to ask for a while now, but had to wait for the right time.
The question was: With regards to roster construction, how much of a concerted effort has been made in order to compete with what Ohio State does, compared to also trying to have the kind of roster that can compete with what a team like Michigan does?
Franklin understood my long-winded question and wound up giving a lengthy and informative response.
"I think that's a fair question," he said, "and I think that's one of the things that maybe frustrates people. And I'm not talking specific to Penn State, I'm saying in general. There are certain weeks you feel like you match up better, whether it's scheme, or there's certain weeks whether you match up whether it's personnel better than other weeks. There's no doubt about that. You may have an injury at a position or two and that position is where their strength is. There's a lot of things that factor into it.
"But to your point, that's the challenge, right. You've got to be able to feel like you can line up and match up from a skill and athleticism perspective with an Ohio State one week, and then say you make it to the Big Ten Championship and you play Wisconsin, that's a very different animal that you're getting ready for, and you have to either have the depth or the diversity within your personnel to do it.
"I think you guys remember in the past we would have Kevin Givens playing D-tackle and we would play Wisconsin or someone like that and play Kevin that week at defensive end to get bigger. So, either having the personnel to be able to make some moves like that or some scheme things that you're going to have to do different to put your players in the best position to be successful.
"No different than these teams that play from a 4-2-5 shell. They are playing with a nickel almost predominately on the field, and then you go play a team that's going to try to play smashmouth football and you've never played with three linebackers on the field. I know that was a big discussion Saturday, is we had those three linebackers on the field. Well, that made a ton of sense against Minnesota and what they do.
"I think your point is a really good one, and that's one of the complexities or the subtle things that's challenging, especially in a conference like the Big Ten where maybe you have a little bit more diversity in how people are built throughout our conference. Where a lot of conferences, pretty much everybody is running a similar style throughout the entire conference. I think that's a good question and I think it's a fair one. That's what you're trying to do -- you're trying to build a team that can do both, which is easier said than done."
What will be very interesting to watch in the coming years, now that Michigan has returned to prominence, is how much Franklin and Penn State might have to change some of the things they do -- personnel, scheme, etc. -- in order to try and be ready for both the Buckeyes and the Wolverines, and all that that entails.
That's why what Franklin said after losing to Michigan was important. He talked about being undersized in some spots on the defensive line, and certainly that was a big problem against the Wolverines.
Now, it hasn't been as big of a problem against the Buckeyes in recent years, because the Lions have had the kind of speed and versatility it's taken in order to at least slow down Ohio State at times. But -- and this is where things get tricky -- if the plan changes going forward to bring in and play a bunch of bigger guys to be able to stop Michigan, then would the Lions be too slow to stop Ohio State?
Give credit Franklin for acknowledging that stuff during his lengthy answer, because how he goes about tackling all of the roster construction issues in the coming years will help determine if Penn State not only can hang with the other two big boys of the Big Ten, but also beat them more often.
