The Nittany Lions' 2024 season will not be without drama

The good news is that college football season is over. It feels like an eternity since Michigan took the national title from Washington, and even longer since Penn State lost to Ole Miss deep in downtown Atlanta.

Nearly eight months of waiting, changes, media rights, debate, expansion and speculation. It's indicative of how much change has occurred in college football that both teams that made it to the finals – a feat that required so much fine-tuning and precision – have undergone such massive restructuring. Both Michigan and Washington begin the 2024-25 season with new head coaches, quarterbacks and dreams.

Penn State, meanwhile, enters its latest season under head coach James Franklin with relative predictable stability. Whatever weaknesses Franklin may have, both real and perceived, there is little doubt about what you get from the Nittany Lions every year.

This consistency should make Penn State a regular participant in an expanded playoff field, which will keep the program relevant no matter how the sport changes. Nevertheless, the Nittany Lions had transfers, transfers and started the largest infrastructure project in the history of the athletic department and hired a completely new set of coordinators.

The bad news is that the conversations and debates have only just begun. The games may be back on, but the long road ahead for Penn State is paved with plenty of drama.

RELATED TOPICS: Penn State's chances of making the College Football Playoff

The development of quarterback Drew Allar, the resurgence of running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, the positional change of defensive end Abdul Carter, the uncertainty in the wide receiver room. All of this is at the forefront of a larger narrative of what Penn State has accomplished – and not accomplished – under Franklin. A tenure that spanned more than a decade, with a conference title and plenty of “what ifs?”

As always, things outside of Franklin's control could derail Penn State's chances of a first playoff appearance. Teams are always one injury away from disaster. That being said, there are few reasons to bet against the Nittany Lions any week this season. The defense should continue to be great under new coordinator Tom Allen, and the offense has too many potential stars for no one to stand out under new coordinator Andy Kotelnicki. If nothing else, Kotelnicki's play should be a breath of fresh air for an offense that has often felt stale in the season's most important moments.

Penn State is on the verge of a new chapter in its illustrious history and is under the same pressure to perform as any team the program has fielded in recent memory. It may not have the same obvious national title aspirations as the 2017 team, but there is pressure everywhere you look:

All of that starts this week with a visit to West Virginia, which is better than you think and would love to hijack Penn State's season right from the start. It underscores Franklin's sometimes cliche “1-0” approach, because while it may sound like predictable coach-speak, it has also resulted in Penn State rarely losing games it shouldn't have lost. Whatever you may find fault with the Nittany Lions' results in the most important moments of the year, you only get to the big games if you care about them in the smaller ones.

But this week is anything but a small matter.

“I know there are reasons why people schedule lower-level non-league games too, because there are going to be things that happen in that game that probably won't happen in the second or third game,” Franklin said Monday. “So that's where I'm losing my hair and losing my sleep because I'm trying to do everything we can to avoid those things that usually happen in the first game and do everything we can to try to avoid or prevent those things.”

RELATED: How James Franklin prepares for a 'challenging' trip to West Virginia

And with nearly 150 days between Penn State's opening game and the national title game, it's hard to argue that college football is becoming more of a marathon than a sprint, a world where losing doesn't crush your dreams, and a world where nothing gets easier as the pressure to perform increases.

How this marathon goes for Penn State could set the tone for the rest of Franklin's tenure. A postseason appearance and maybe even a playoff win could cement Penn State as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new format. Missing the playoffs as a healthy and capable team only increases the questions. Making the playoffs and putting up a poor performance against another elite team could raise questions about whether an early loss in an expanded playoff is much different than a loss to Michigan or Ohio State.

Sure, the games are back. But the debate about whether that's good or bad remains.

Ben Jones has covered Penn State athletics for 13 years and has covered numerous Nittany Lions home and away games, from the Rose Bowl to the NCAA Tournament. He is also the author of the book Happy Valley Hockey. You can read his work here: and follow him on X (Twitter) under Ben_Jones88

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