Top Ten Teams with no key wins?
This week looked to be just a stepping stone for Penn State and Texas. Both teams found themselves in the top ten despite already having a loss — Texas to the No. 1 team in the country, Ohio State, in Week 1, and Penn State to the then-No. 2 Oregon just last week. Both teams were either looking to continue their slow roll toward tougher competition or get back in the saddle after a tough loss.
We’ll start with Penn State and James Franklin. For all the ridicule he gets for not being able to beat the top teams each year, Franklin has done a tremendous job beating up on the teams he’s supposed to. This week looked no different as the Nittany Lions traveled all the way to the West Coast to play the shipwreck known as UCLA. After starting 0-3 and losing to two Mountain West schools, UCLA fired head coach DeShaun Foster and opted to continue the season by letting fans submit play calls through a QR code on the jumbotron. They soon found out that wouldn’t work because, well, no one shows up to the games. So they handed the interim job to Tim Skipper, with Jerry Neuheisel helping call plays. Every good college team has a former kicker calling plays, right?
UCLA entered the game 0-4 with no sign of a win on the horizon. Their remaining home games were all against undefeated or one-loss teams — including this week’s matchup, as Penn State came to town off a gut-wrenching overtime loss to Oregon. The spread closed at 25.5; no one in their right mind thought this game would be worth watching. CBS announcers Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson had to be thinking, “We traded packed SEC stadiums for this?” as the camera panned across a quarter-full Rose Bowl before kickoff.
UCLA got the opening kickoff, and it was immediately clear that Nico Iamaleava was playing like early-2024 Tennessee Iamaleava. An 11-play touchdown drive followed by a 7-play field-goal drive gave UCLA a 10-0 lead over Penn State. Not only was that the Bruins’ largest lead of the year — it was their only lead of the year. After Penn State went 10 plays and 75 yards for a touchdown, I thought, “Okay, they’ve settled in. They’ll take it from here.” I was wrong. UCLA unleashed a second quarter that saw them score three times while Penn State punted and turned the ball over on downs. Going into halftime, the UCLA Bruins led 27-7. Let me say that again another way: UCLA had a twenty-point lead over the No. 7 team in the country.
A blocked-punt touchdown by the Nittany Lions in the third quarter cut the lead to 27-21 — the closest margin since the start of the game. But even in the face of adversity, UCLA marched down the field to extend the lead to 34-21 right before the fourth quarter. Another 13-play drive that burned nearly half the fourth quarter put UCLA up by 14 with about six minutes left. Penn State answered, but UCLA found itself facing a 4th-and-1 at its own 35 with just over two minutes to play — a chance to ice the game. Not sure if this was a play call from the kicker, but it looked like it. A designed QB run was not the time they wanted Iamaleava to revert back to his UCLA self, losing yardage and giving Penn State the ball in prime position to tie it.
Luckily for UCLA, Drew Allar might be even worse. On 4th-and-2, he kept the ball on what might have been the worst read-option decision of all time. I’ll give UCLA credit — the jet-sweep option looked like it would’ve been blown up too — but when the QB is staring down two defenders right in front of him, he’s usually taught to give that ball.
A late “pitchy-pitchy-woo-woo” effort by the Nittany Lions came up short, and UCLA held on to beat No. 7 Penn State, 42-37. Now let’s talk about what this means. Tim Skipper, who’s been a head coach for about three weeks, now has as many top-ten wins as James Franklin does in the past eight years! (I’m not counting Boise State as a top-ten team last year — that ranking was inflated.) If I were a Penn State fan, this would be unacceptable. To lose to a team having its plays called by a kicker — with no coach, no fans, and no hope — is brutal.
Penn State’s wins this year have come against FIU, Nevada, and FCS Villanova. They fall from No. 7 all the way out of the rankings this week.
On the other hand, UCLA played great — but that doesn’t change the nature of their remaining schedule or how they’ve looked in their other four games. Only time will tell if Nico has figured something out and will play like his Volunteer self, or if he’ll continue his UCLA ways. Penn State, who began the year ranked No. 2, now finds itself unranked. Hard to imagine it could get any worse for anyone else…
