There are only questions this morning.
We may never find the answers.
That’s what was at the bottom of Penn State’s 30-24 double overtime loss to Oregon. It’s a collection of why that lingers. That may always linger. That may never get answered.
Why Penn State is stuck here: that is not clear.
But it felt obvious as Penn State’s offense puttered around for much of three quarters.
It felt obvious when Penn State punted from its own 36. It felt obvious when Penn State failed to properly defend a pass play in the second overtime. It felt obvious when Drew Allar let a pass that should have never been thrown on a play that should have never been called.
It all feels so obvious but yet that’s not the underlying answer to why.
Why Penn State is stuck here, as a very good football program. But that’s all it feels like Penn State will ever be.
Even the law of averages doesn’t seem to respect the why. Why hasn’t Penn State bucked this trend of losing in moments like this? Why wasn’t Saturday night the night when that was all going away?
Why James Franklin’s team so frustratingly miss the moment in the moment.
Questions are all we have.
Questions about what comes from this Penn State season now – one that is certainly not over but certainly feels the same as the last eight at least.
Questions about why we should believe that Penn State is ever going to get over this hump. Questions about why Allar would ever be the quarterback to get Penn State over that hump. Why has he, in his third year as a starter, been so inconsistent, not even game-to-game or drive-to-drive, but throw-to-throw?
Why Andy Kotelnicki continues to take Penn State out of a rhythm to provide window dressing that no opposing defense seems to bite on.
Why Penn State’s running backs, who were the centerpiece to why there was so much anticipation for this season, mustered a total of 75 yards on 23 carries. More specifically, why a running back in Nicholas Singleton continued to see carries when his effort had not improved from any other game this season. Why Penn State’s offensive line, also touted highly this offseason, hasn’t been helpful at all.
Why it took three quarters for anything with that offense to click and why couldn’t it have looked like the way it looked in the fourth quarter all night long? Why, after that offense clicked, and why after the running game provided key plays, did Penn State go to a throw on the first play of the second overtime that should have never been thrown?
Why Franklin-coached teams never give fans or themselves the relief that they want at moments like this.
Why fans should believe that this will ever end. Why fans, who pour their hard-earned cash and a massive amount of energy into supporting, into believing, into hoping that this will all eventually end seem to be nowhere closer on the search for that.
None of those questions has an answer because none of this makes any sense.
It’s not that Penn State should be better than this. It’s that Penn State, over the course of the last near-decade, has only been this.
But maybe more than ever, Penn State’s loss to Oregon was the sum of all of its parts. There wasn’t one play. There were multiple decision points and multiple moments from multiple characters in a four-quarter search for those answers that only created more questions. For what could have been a defining win, it instead felt like a defining loss.
The Penn State Purgatory Era, the one that we’re all very well aware of, met a painfully new rock-bottom by the time Allar let the ball fly into triple coverage. The only thing to show for it is the tired question of why.
Yet there is only so much time left for questions. There are only so many opportunities left for questions before something has to change, rather than give or break. That’s what may make all of this the most frustrating: the expectation that something will give way rather than change.
Of course, that may not be the answer, either.
At this point, until something, whatever it may be — whatever your opinion is on what fixes that — changes or improves or goes away, there will only be questions.
There will not be answers.
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