PHILADELPHIA
James Franklin stood at the podium and tried be the no-nonsense coach ready to absorb the uppercuts he knew were coming.
Words ring hollow, though, when you hear them over and over and over again.
“I have to watch the film,” he said, more than a few times in the wake of the destruction.
“You have to give Temple and (head coach) Matt Rhule a lot of credit. They played extremely well,” he added.
“Obviously, the sacks are an issue,” he went on.
“We didn’t punt the ball well ...” the speech continued, “which has been a problem for two years. ...”
There. Franklin just touched on the most troubling aspect of what happened Saturday afternoon at Lincoln Financial Field.
All these problems, all these major issues that piled up and led to Temple’s first win over Penn State since October 1941 — a thorough embarrassment of a 27-10 defeat that saw the Owls dominate every facet of the game — were issues last season.
And they seem like bigger issues now.
Especially up front.
Think back a month, to Penn State’s annual summer media day Aug. 6. Clearly, that’s a day of hope, a day to say some things about your team to get fans excited about your team. So it’s difficult to blame guys like Franklin and offensive coordinator John Donovan and offensive line coach Herb Hand for talking that day about how excited they were to see four returning starters come back and show how much they’ve worked and how much the game has slowed down for them after a tumultuous season.
“I think having all that returning experience,” Franklin said that day, “they’re going to be able to play so much more confident and decisive.”
They didn’t play the same as they did last season, that’s for sure.
On the whole, they were worse. Hackenberg never got sacked more than six times in a game at any point last season, and that was against Michigan. They allowed 10 sacks in the last three quarters against Temple.
“I have to give them credit. They played well. Their defense played well, and we didn’t,” senior center Angelo Mangiro, the line’s leader said. “Game’s over now. We’re on to Buffalo.”
Mangiro’s a good guy, a fine representative of the university and a hard worker. But sorry, the same old “on to (insert next opponent)” attitude isn’t going to fly this time. It’s very clear trying harder isn’t going to fix very much.
To Franklin’s credit, he pulled fewer punches when it came to the performance of the offensive line. But perhaps in his frustration, he revealed something that indicates the real issue at hand here.
“Literally, our best five are playing,” Franklin said when asked if he might consider trying some new players up front. “The guys that are backing them up are redshirt freshmen that we don’t feel at this time are ready. We’ll look at it, obviously. There are going to be some adjustments we’re going to have to make. But we’ve spent a lot of time all offseason discussing who are our best five and getting them on the field.
“You don’t want to hear it, but the truth is, we still have some challenges there. It was obvious to everybody watching the game today.”
Criticize the line for this performance, because it deserves it.
Criticize the receivers for not getting much separation against a tight Temple secondary.
Criticize Hackenberg if you want. He didn’t make every proper read Saturday. He threw wildly on a few passes. He didn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence throwing for just 103 yards and throwing more incompletions (14) than completions (11). But it’s difficult to play quarterback when you’re getting sacked on almost 30 percent of your dropbacks.
Penn State could have played Tom Brady at quarterback Saturday and still not beaten Temple.
But most of the criticism for this loss, which felt like the worst one in program history, should go to a coaching staff that to put it bluntly didn’t fix the problems it needed to fix in the offseason.
These are not the redshirt freshmen and true freshmen this staff brought in to cure the line’s ills, for sure.
But this staff has to be able to come up with a way to at least not make this front five helpless going forward.
If they can’t, Penn State is in for as long a season as it has ever had.
(Collins covers Penn State football for Times-Shamrock. Contact him at dcollins@timesshamrock.com and follow him on Twitter @psubst)