By Kyle Golik
I am not sure where coaches started using cliches in sports discourse, but between players, coaches, and media, it is full of them. During ESPN College GameDay’s visit covering the SEC Championship Game, they had a segment with the two head coaches, Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Texas’s Steve Sarkisian.
Smart had a cliche about execution from the players, Sarkisian doubled down and invoked the always-good “paralysis by analysis” cliche. Nick Saban, seated in wasn’t having any of that. “I think they’re both bulls**tting us.”
In the media, you have boundaries you have to respect. I simply cannot go up to the player and be blunt about the failures, especially at the collegiate level where you have to deal with Communications officers that often are helicopters around players to ensure compliance. When you get to postseason games, the control typically goes from the school to the conference. There is a little more freedom for us to ask harder questions, it isn’t like a professional locker room where you can be a little more direct but you can press harder.
One of the tropes that I wish I could stop writing about for a while is Penn State’s big game woes under James Franklin.
There have been plenty of them where Franklin blew it with a decision or seemingly his players weren’t prepared for the onslaught.
Despite dropping another to Oregon 45-37 in the Big Ten Championship Game, I found little fault with Franklin and the staff. I felt the players had the attitude to overcome the early 18-point deficit and made it a game. It was failures by the players and not executing in critical situations that ultimately doomed Penn State.
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When the options were laid out whether to do the players press conference or go see Franklin. I opted for the players because I wanted to see how they felt about the game. While circling the tables of linebackers Kobe King, Dom DeLuca, cornerback A.J. Harris, tackle Nolan Rucci, tight end Tyler Warren, and running back Nicholas Singleton, the team was proud of their effort and upbeat, to me a good sign. The problem I had, much like Saban did on GameDay, let’s cut the crap on the cliches.
DeLuca used the cliche that Penn State went “shot for shot” with Oregon – which they absolutely did. I pressed DeLuca on, when can Penn State instead of reacting to the shot landed by Oregon, why can’t they ever be the one that dictates the proverbial boxing bout?
“I say it comes down to those second and short, third and short situations, we got to be able to stop the run,” DeLuca said. “I mean we got to be able to execute there, it comes down to a game of inches at the end of the day. Yeah, they landed more punches than us, but we got to be able to come back.”
As I shifted to Harris, the emphasis on Harris was being able to finish.
“We came up against a really good Ohio State team and a really good Oregon team, so I feel like we proved to the country that we definitely belonged,” Harris said. “We just have to finish these types of ball games at this point.”
I would ask Harris about what are the keys to finish these games Penn State often falls short in, with Harris replying, “Like I said earlier with the penalties, that killed us. They didn’t really have any penalties. They won the turnover battle…if you lose the explosive (play) and turnover battle, that’s the ball game right there.”
I pressed Harris once more, what is his definition of finishing, Harris simply said “to win the game.”
I finished up with Kobe King, and King was emphasizing the lessons being learned in big game disappointments. I pressed King about speaking of lessons being learned but when will those lessons materialize in a big game win for Penn State?
“There is such small room for error, that the execution has to be at a high rate all across the board from everyone. So not pointing fingers, but I’m just saying that the execution within the smaller area, within this game of football, is very hard.”
All three players have solid points and are acutely aware of coming up short. Sometimes the cliches are the way to get through facing the music. We all have been there when we come up short at work or in any other endeavor, players aren’t immune.
Ultimately, Penn State has a golden opportunity with a favorable route in the College Football Playoffs with a home game, followed by a potential opportunity against the top Group of 5 champion in Boise State, who many feel are one dimensional between Heisman runner-up Ashton Jeanty. Before Penn State looks too far, it needs to not overlook ACC runner-up SMU at Beaver Stadium. That will be obvious from the kick, but if over the two weeks, Penn State has to sit on coming up short against No. 1 Oregon, if the lessons have truly been learned Penn State will be a dangerous team and maybe for once Franklin gets lauded for some big game success on the sport’s biggest stage.
