Well, folks, despite James Franklin’s consistent talk about not allowing one loss to turn into two, one loss did, in fact, turn into two as No. 7 Penn State fell to UCLA 42-37.

The game, which took place in the Rose Bowl, is the first time since 1985 a top-10 team lost to a 0-4 team, per Hayes Fawcett. The loss also breaks the Nittany Lions’ 34-game win streak against unranked opponents.

Regardless, the players defended each other in their post-game press conferences, determined that the season is not over, even with a 3-2 record through five games.

“I firmly believe we have one of the best cultures in college football,” Drew Allar said. “I don’t think one or two games define us. I think what’s going to define this team specifically is going to be how we respond to this.”

While the culture has never been in question at Penn State, the coaching staff has been. Just a week after “fire Franklin” chants rained down on the Beaver Stadium field in a double overtime loss to No. 2 Oregon, the team was not prepared for UCLA’s coaching staff, made up of three interim coaches.

After scoring on the first drive of the game, which was the first time the Bruins had taken a lead against anyone in 2025, UCLA completed an onside kick with ease.

“I think the opening sequence of the game was significant with the touchdown, and then the surprise onside,” Franklin said. “We talked about all week long, that they were going to take significant risks in this game, and that was that was obviously two really significant drives and plays in the game.”

Two more questionable coaching calls came on the offensive side of the ball. In a must-have 3rd-and-9, offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki called a quarterback dive, eerily similar to the one that started the fire Franklin chants against Oregon. This time it worked, though.

A few minutes later, Penn State had a 4th-and-2 from the UCLA 9 with 40 seconds left in the game. Get it, and the Nittany Lions have four downs to tie the game at 42, fail to reach the first down marker, and the game is over.

Kotelnicki draws up an option between Trebor Peña, who was in motion, and Allar, who had the option to keep it up the middle. UCLA ran a cover zero, forcing Allar to hold onto the ball and lose 3 yards on the play.

“They beat the block, got penetration, the read gave us the give, and they had two guys right at the point of attack for not only the ball carrier, which would have been Pena, but also Drew,” Franklin said.

This continued the theme of relying on Allar’s legs to make plays at the end of games.

Against Oregon, Allar had just 10 rushing yards on two attempts in the first half, but picked it up by the fourth quarter with seven carries and 32 yards in the second period of play. In the first half, Penn State scored three points, and in the second, the Nittany Lions had 14.

There was a similar story against UCLA; Allar had just two carries for two yards, scoring only seven points. In the second half, the Medina, Ohio, native rushed nine times for 76 yards and ended the game as Penn State’s rushing leader. This resulted in 30 points for Penn State in the second half.

“I just had to break a couple tackles with the extra guys they have in the box,” Allar said. “I mean, it [running] was an emphasis, for sure, but not the goal.”

In general, Allar had his best game of the season. He threw for 200 yards, two touchdowns, and had no interceptions. Despite a lot of talk about flying out west, the three-year start has never had issues in California.

Last season against USC, despite throwing three interceptions, he had 391 yards and two touchdowns in a comeback victory.

“I don’t care where we’re playing in the country or in the world,” Allar said after the loss. “Like it’s football, it’s an opportunity to come out and play the game we love and have fun. Obviously, losing is not fun. So, you know, unfortunately, it’s going to be a long playground home.”

Something that has affected Allar, though, is all the talk about him and Penn State football as a whole. The quarterback gave up a potential first-round draft pick in 2025 to play another season with the Nittany Lions, but it hasn’t been the season he was expecting.

“I mean, personally, it hasn’t been fun,” Allar said. “I’d say that between all the texts you get, emails you get, and all the things that you have to deal with on the outside world. I try my best not to let those things faze me, just because nobody knows what it’s like to be in our position.”

Franklin was big on outside noise after the Oregon loss. The worst thing a team can do is let family, friends, classmates, or the media turn one loss into two. Yet, that is not the easiest thing for every player to do.

“We got to tune out all the outside noise,” Franklin said. “I thought our guys worked hard at doing that last week, but obviously not well enough. We got to stick together, the coaches, the players in the locker room, offense, defense, especially.”

It’s to be expected that if people thought last week’s noise was loud, this week it is going to be even louder. Franklin mentioned this was a good weekend to get out of town, but now the Nittany Lions are tasked with another struggling opponent at home.

While tensions have been high all season, mostly because of the struggles against an easy out-of-conference schedule, it is likely the smallest slip-up next Saturday will cause a plethora of boos.

“The reality is we didn’t play well enough in all three phases to win the game, and there’s going to be a lot out there to divide, divide, divide, and we got to tune all that out and stick together,” Franklin said. “So I think we’ll do that. I think we’ll do that, it’s not going to be easy, but I think we’ll do that.”