Another dose of reality puts Penn State, James Franklin atop college football Misery Index

The best advice you can give a college coach is to change jobs every seven or eight years, if they’re lucky enough to make it that long. It doesn’t apply in every case, of course. There’s a separate category for coaches who win national championships, though they aren’t necessarily immune either. Coaches who regularly punch above their weight at programs that don't expect titles might have it best of all in this business because they can usually stay as long as they want. 

But if you're at a top-shelf place and you’re good but constantly falling short of the ultimate goal in the same way over and over again, you’re always on a timer. Even if the school doesn’t really want to fire you, the fans eventually tire of you. And even with all the money being deposited in your bank account, it’s not the best quality of life. 

Meet James Franklin, the coach at Penn State. He’s had some good stretches. He’s had a few down periods. But mainly, he’s just kind of achieved at the same level for 10 years. And that level isn’t Ohio State or Michigan's level, which means the Nittany Lions have been cut out of the College Football Playoff picture because of two teams they play every year. 

Is that good enough? Penn State needs to beat those teams now and then. And Saturday seemed like a good chance, with Ohio State somewhat diminished from the offensive monster they were the last few years and Penn State sporting the best defense it’s had under Franklin. This year might have been as even as the overall talent has ever been. 

And for all that, Franklin’s team didn’t even really show up. Yeah, they were in the game into the fourth quarter. But they didn’t play well at all offensively, gaining just 240 yards with 49 rushing yards on 26 attempts.

In the end, it was a 20-12 loss with a garbage time touchdown making it look more respectable, dropping Franklin to 1-9 against Ohio State. He’s fared better against Michigan (3-6), but the Wolverines weren’t a top-10 team in those three good years. 

HIGHS AND LOWS: Winners and losers from Week 8 in college football

BIG BUCKS: Brian Kelly earns $500,000 bowl bonus for LSU's sixth win

In other words, the overall picture is more or less the same for Penn State as it was six or seven years ago once Franklin got the program rolling. Whether they’re right or wrong, how long until the people at Penn State just want something … different? 

The romance in college football is often in the hope and the unknown, but that’s gone at Penn State. They know what the program is and isn’t under Franklin. At this point, fans could probably predict almost word-for-word what he’s going to say at his press conference. 

And it’s all really good. But as Saturday’s performance showed, still not good enough. 

For that reason, Penn State is No. 1 in this week’s Misery Index, a weekly measurement of which fan bases are feeling the most angst about the state of their favorite program. 

Four more in misery

Arkansas

In the euphoria of Sam Pittman getting the Razorbacks to 9-4 in 2021, the athletics director at Arkansas did what ADs usually do in these situations. He got hoodwinked by super agent Jimmy Sexton into giving out a big contract extension, even though Pittman was neither leaving nor being seriously pursued by anyone else. That AD’s name is Hunter Yurachek, and these days you mostly hear about him because he’s been one of the loudest voices begging for a national law regulating name, image and likeness and arguing that schools will go broke or have to cut sports if players become employees and get paid. 

But when Yurachek has to fire his football coach -- which might be this year -- you won't hear him cry poor or threaten to pull money from women’s volleyball or men’s golf. He’ll just go find the money because that’s what these ADs do. And it’ll be a lot of money — either $16.1 million or $10.7 million, which is an interesting story on its own.

The contract stipulated that Pittman got an extra year if he won seven games at any point in the deal, which was accomplished last season when the Razorbacks went 7-6. But if his overall record dipped from the beginning of 2021 dipped below .500 it would be a smaller buyout.

After a 7-3 loss to Mississippi State — Arkansas’ sixth in a row and 10th in its last 12 SEC games — Pittman’s record since 2021 is 18-16. If the Hogs lose their next two to Florida and Auburn, he’ll be right at .500 heading into a Nov. 18 game against…Florida International. 

It’s all funny money these days in college football, but the idea that a game against FIU could be worth $5.4 million to Pittman personally and to Arkansas’ budget is maybe the only funny thing about this disaster of a Razorbacks season. 

Indiana

One of many schools that got tricked into thinking they really had something going during the bizarro pandemic season of 2020, the Hoosiers rewarded coach Tom Allen with a way-too-friendly contract in March of 2021. Now, 2 1/2 seasons and a measly eight total wins later, Indiana would be on the hook for a $20 million buyout if they want to get rid of him. 

And they probably need to after dropping to 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the Big Ten with a 31-14 loss to Rutgers. 

Hey, Indiana fans had reason to be excited back then. Indiana wasn’t a one-hit COVID wonder, but it was a two-hit wonder under Allen. In 2019, when the Hoosiers went 8-5, their offensive coordinator was Kalen DeBoer, who has worked wonders at Fresno State and now Washington. Their defensive coordinator was Kane Wommack, an up-and-comer who is winning big at South Alabama. By 2021, both were gone — as is quarterback Michael Penix who tore it up in 2020, suffered from multiple injuries and ultimately followed DeBoer to the Huskies, where he is now the Heisman Trophy favorite.

So while Allen obviously had something to do with the success, he totally owns the failure that has followed. Indiana is a football program used to going back to square one every few years. It seems they're about to find themselves back in the same spot. 

Michigan State

Here’s the state of things currently in East Lansing. On the night they lost at home 49-0 to their most hated rival with an interim coach who is in place because their old coach admitted to masturbating on the phone with a university vendor who subsequently filed a sexual harassment complaint, somehow the only thing anyone will remember about this game is Adolf Hitler. We shouldn’t have to explain why it’s bad to have an image of a smiling Hitler on your scoreboard as part of your pre-game entertainment, regardless of context. (It was a trivia question that the university apologized for and blamed on poor oversight of a third-party vendor.) But how did that one slip past the game operations people? Or, as soon as somebody saw anything involving Hitler on the scoreboard, how did someone not just reach as quickly as possible for the button to turn it off? But however it happened, unspeakable embarrassment keeps coming for the Spartans. 

TCU

It’s very hard to get to the national championship game. It’s almost as hard to throw away most of that goodwill with the fan base in a matter of 10 months. But that’s about where the Horned Frogs find themselves after a 41-3 loss at Kansas State. At 4-4 with trips to Texas Tech and Oklahoma still on the schedule along with home games against Texas and Baylor, it will be a high-wire act for Sonny Dykes to get this very mediocre team to 6-6. TCU was obviously an excellent team last year with Max Duggan at quarterback, but also had a lot of good bounces go its way. If a Duggan-less TCU follows that up with a losing record, that run might be remembered as a bit of a historical fluke. 

Miserable but not miserable enough

Central Florida

Somehow, despite being a dog-tired football team, the Knights managed to score on a fourth-and-10 with 1:16 remaining to pull within a two-point conversion of tying Oklahoma in Norman. And then what did they do? They tried a terrible, double-pass trick play that required the ball to go seven yards behind the line of scrimmage before a right-handed receiver rolled left. Meanwhile, UCF had nobody on the right side of the field to draw the defense. Oklahoma sniffed it out easily and the second pass was actually never attempted. Welcome to the Gus Malzahn experience, UCF fans. And remarkably, it dropped UCF to 0-for-3 on two-point conversions this year — all on plays with some level of trickery. For a team that's third in the country in rushing this year, that's not just bizarre, it’s almost inexcusable. But for the 3-4 Knights, that’s kind of what you get sometimes with the Gus Bus.

South Carolina

Shane Beamer had an unexpectedly fun first two years with the Gamecocks. But he’s getting a reputation as the saltiest loser in the sport, which has already gotten old during a spiraling 2-5 season. After the season opener against North Carolina, he complained about the chain gang delaying an onside kick attempt to start the second half. Last week after blowing a 10-point lead to Florida, he kicked a Gatorate cooler and broke a bone in his foot. And even after Saturday's 34-12 loss at Missouri, he made a snide comment about the press conference room being sub-standard compared to the school's nice new facilities. Is this stuff a huge deal? No. And Beamer is a nice guy, but he spends a lot of time apologizing for stuff he does in the heat of the moment.

Sam Houston State

Welcome to the big time, Bearkats. And no, we don't mean Conference USA. We mean the Misery Index, and it’s well-deserved. After many years as one of the top Championship Subdivision programs with a national title just three seasons ago, you for some reason decided to leave that comfort zone and jump on the FBS train. And after a 33-27 double-overtime loss to Florida International, you now know how hard it's going to be. Sam Houston State is now 0-7 since moving up, and in an era of NIL, possible player compensation and a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, how much upside was there really for you to make this move? 

East Carolina

The trajectory seemed clear, from complete despair to signs of life to winning records in 2021 and 2022. But suddenly, the Pirates are back in the bad place — maybe a worse place. They’re 1-6 after a 10-7 home loss to Charlotte, which had also been struggling at 1-5 coming into the game, and the numbers are all very ugly. A bottom-10 offense nationally  coming in, the Pirates managed 127 yards against Charlotte and missed a tying 48-yard field goal with 34 seconds left. With such a passionate fan base and a highly regarded coach in Mike Houston, who won big at the lower levels including a national FCS title at James Madison, it's all very hard to figure.