Happy Valley Insider - PSU POD: Matt Zollers is gone, so where does Penn State go next?
The PSU 365 pod talks about top QB target Matt Zollers going elsewhere and who could be the next man up.
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Podcast Matt Zollers is gone, so where does Penn State go next?
- Thread starter Richie O
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As long as Franklin is head coach, Penn State will continue to fall in the rankings and recruiting will continue to go downhill.
Didn't an alleged 4 star qb from Florida verbally commit to PSU for 2025? So, Franklin's recruiting is going downhill because he landed an alleged 4 star qb from Florida and lost out on an alleged 4 star qb from PA. I must be missing something. And notice how I say "alleged" regarding the stars awarded to each player, because I want to see how these kids play against equal competition before I judge how good they really are.
Any decline in recruiting rankings has more to do with our alumni base’s failure to embrace NIL than anything Franklin is doing.
QB room is pretty good right now. Allar, Pribula, Smolik (when he comes back) and Grunk
I'm never going to back paying highschool kids money. If that's what it takes to win today then a new generation will have to pony up.
I agree. Also, as I've said before, every starting qb under Franklin either has been drafted or signed as a FA in the NFL, and that doesn't even include Levis. I'm not saying that our qbs under him have been the caliber of OSU's (really who has?), but they've been better than the vast majority of schools.
I'll agree with your sentiment if he doesn't lead PSU to the playoffs in most seasons now that they've been expanded. If they had been expanded as of 2016, PSU would've made the playoffs in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023, and in several of those seasons probably would've had home games.
I understand but then you can’t complain when we continue to lose kids to big NIL schools.
There you go again, spewing out facts as if they matter!😹
yep. there is a huge disparity between the top five or six programs and everybody else. GA, Clemson, AL, tOSU. You've got UM, TX, Oregon, Washington, and LSU who have knocked on the door. UM wasn't very good until three years ago. And then you have quite a void. we'll see what happens to Oregon, Washington and TX to see if they can sustain. I look for Ole Miss to have a pretty good year this year.
PSU appears to sit in that void someplace around 8 to 12.
If they went to the playoffs you would still complain. You wont be happy til Joes corpse is propped up on the sidelines and losing games to Toledo. #Weekend At Bernies.
I'm sure it's difficult for some alumni to embrace a system that looks to attract kids to a university they love with money.
I would say a slight disparity but that is semantics.
If you follow stats only the top 5 usually have winning records vs the top 10. The next 6-10 usually get knocked off by the top 5. During the regular season the top 10 go about 110-10 vs the field.
Isn't 8-12 ab out where PSU should be? We are not Alabama, Clemson, Georgia or OSU either. That is reality. We might not even be in the top 12 based on the program as a whole.
yes, I agree. we are not, and perhaps, never will be tOSU, AL, GA caliber of football team. I think, especially after JoePa's great experiment followed by the horrible PR of the JS incident, we've just got too much headwind. I think the University is on pins and needles to keep from getting another scandal so we play it very conservatively.
I'm sure some on this board will react negatively to this, but if PSU can remain a top 8-12 program, provided that they can have some seasons here and there in which they approach the top 5, I can live with that considering the demographic changes that have occurred in the last 20 to 30 years in the Northeast.
Unless you can plop the Northeast region into the Southeast or Southwest, it's going to be a fight to maintain PSU as a top 8 to 12 program; PSU probably is the lone program in the Northeast that now has any shot of staying in that position, and there only are a very few in the Midwest (ND, OSU and Michigan) that also can do this. Therefore, like I said, if we can hold our current position, I'd take that.
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I, sadly, agree. UM sold their soles and, really, cheated. tOSU is a national program that is 100% a football factory whose last two coaches were let go (Tressel for using trinkets to pay players and Urban for covering up alleged spousal abuse by a staff member). I don't see us going there under CJF.
One thing I noticed last year was that UM, O, and Washington had a ton of kids who could have gone pro but chose to spend an additional year in college chasing a Natty. We've had a lot of kids go pro and/or bail on the bowls.
To be honest, with the portal it no longer matters if you miss--just find NIL money for the guy looking to transfer that you want.
Penn State is far closer in terms of a program to Michigan, ND and Ohio State than anyone in the northeast. Who are you comparing us to Syracuse and WVU? Or Pitt? The Big Ten and SEC is different and allows us to compete with anyone. We shouldn't have any issue recruiting nationally.
I also may get negative reaction to this, but I admire OSU's total football culture; nobody can deny that there is a lot of "buy-in" to that program, and yeah, I know that they had a lot of defections after this past season, but that has been an anamoly.
I hear you but I am not sure I would use the term "admire". I feel like there is a bigger picture than W's and L's in football. It reflects their "brand". PSU has always been student first, athlete second. I feel like the football factories are athlete first, student second. From a top down perspective, I am not sure that is where PSU's brand is or wants to be.
Did you admire it during Joes last 15 years or did you call it cheating?
Funny how Success with Honor has now morphed into success regardless of honor.
PSU also beat OSU much more often in Paterno's last 15 seasons than it has since he was fired, so whatever OSU was doing then wasn't as effective as what they're doing now to beat PSU.
My only point regarding schools like Pitt, Syracuse and BC is that they pretty much have no shot now to be a consistent top 10 team, and PSU really is the only Northeast school that has positioned itself to be a consistent top 10 program.
I wish that PSU's football brand mirrored OSU's more, especially since now there is no charade or facade of the student-athlete; we now are dealing with de facto pro athletes.
You mean after the sanctions OSU upped their game? Do you think that was a coincidence?
Where college football is now is a sport where there is no salary cap. Whatever school has the most money gets the best players. In OSU's case, I would be interested if they ever miss out on a recruit that they want. They have no budget as far as I can tell. They will pay whatever it takes to land that recruit or portal player. We obviously are not spending whatever it takes. Why did the DT from Baltimore choose Oklahoma over us after months of us being in the driver's seat with him? The QB from PA goes to Missouri? I am not saying we expect to get all these recruits but this is a trend we will see more of (PSU losing recruits we would have nabbed in the past and not in the past as with JoePa I mean in the past as in 3 years ago, 2 years ago). Money is by far the most important criteria. I guarantee if OSU wanted either of those kids they would he headed to Columbus. It now is essentially who has the most money and we may not even be top 20 in that regard.
Based on the current environment of major college football, I have no problem with whatever behavior in which OSU engaged to win games. When OSU is playing for NCs and winning Big 10 Championship after Big 10 Championship, I would bet that almost none of their fans care about the means, and I wouldn't care if PSU did the same. That's why there's a Patriot League.
Are you ready to put your hard earned money toward some NIL collective? That is what is needed. Not sure why you would admire a fan base of people who spend money on a high school football player who they don't know and will never know when that money could have been spent on something more worthwhile like a charitable organization. Personally I admire a big money PSU donor who would choose to give money to his or her favorite charity versus throwing it at the latest 4 or 5 star high school recruit.
I like everyone else get frustrated with not beating ranked teams, however, before you fire Franklin you better have a sure thing lined up, because you could end up in a lot worse situation.
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The f'ing melodrama from the media covering PSU is pathetic. I guess it is a Kendra thing? Nah, these babies weren't born back then but they act like they were. Good God!
These kids study depth charts and study their competition at the schools that are recruiting them. When you look at the PSU depth chart at QB right now, it’s a crowded potentially talented room. It’s not so much that the QBs recruits are afraid of competition, it just makes common sense to go where you have the potential quickest path to play.
