It’s been a year and two days since Penn State football fired James Franklin in an attempt to rid itself of an extremely rigid ceiling of being really good, but never truly great.

Six games into the Matt Campbell era, it doesn’t exactly look like the Nittany Lions are any closer to reaching their ceiling, but using the 2026 season to fully evaluate the reasons behind a hiring is intentionally obtuse.

Penn State didn’t fire Franklin to maximize 2026; it fired him to maximize the long-term vision.

Yet halfway through Campbell’s debut season in Happy Valley, a distinctly Franklin-smelling problem emerged, one that plagued the decade of stagnation under him. Campbell himself has even mentioned it, albeit in a different form.

The Penn State Nittany Lions lack a distinct identity.

They have since the moment Joe Paterno was fired as head coach in the disastrous aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, but this isn’t a “rah-rah JoePa” speech; it’s about identifying something we’ve now seen three head coaches fail to address properly.

It is still very early for Campbell, but it’s something he knows is absolutely a problem for a team that’s now fully, unequivocally, his.

“The reality of it is, we lack an identity,” Campbell said after the Northwestern defeat. “We lack who we want to be and where we need to be.”

He went on to say that almost every phase of the team isn’t where it needs to be, from the offensive line and run-game blocking to the reads the tailbacks make and more.

“When that’s not working, what it certainly does is it certainly stresses the entire organism. You can’t play a game situationally where you’re playing in rhythm, and really, for the last six quarters, we failed to do that in all three phases of the game,” Campbell said.

Campbell identified things that need to be fixed in-house, but the program as a whole has lacked a true sense of what it wants to be more than anything over the last 15 years.

To figure out why that is, you have to zoom out and address Penn State’s place in the Big Ten pecking order since its resurgence in 2016.

Since Penn State won the Big Ten Championship in 2016, only four teams have won a Big Ten title. Ohio State won four in a row from 2017-20, Michigan won three in a row from 2021-23, Oregon beat Penn State in 2024, and Indiana climbed the mountaintop in 2025.

These teams are very different, but what they absolutely have are identities.

Ohio State recruits five-stars from every corner of the globe, maximizing athleticism and churning prospects into first-round picks year after year. Oregon, with its unlimited Nike resources, copies that strategy.

Michigan recruits bruisers. It focuses on size, physicality, and a type of nastiness in the trenches that puts fear into opposing teams. There are years when they deviate, but when the Wolverines are good, they run the ball down your throat and suffocate you on the other end.

The identity of Indiana might be harder to deduce than the other three, but their success revolved around a No. 1 overall pick quarterback in Fernando Mendoza and a Grade-A coach in Curt Cignetti, a proven winner.

Now close your eyes and think about Penn State’s identity. Under Bill O’Brien. Under Franklin. Under Campbell. What do you see?

I don’t really see anything, if I’m being honest with you.

As someone who spent much of my time growing up watching Penn State football, there was always a distinct combination that ruined season after season for Franklin.

He could never beat Ohio State because he lacked the athletes to keep up with the Buckeyes. When push came to shove, it was a Buckeye who made a play with his God-given talent.

In 2017, J.T. Barrett’s strong arm, future NFL running back J.K. Dobbins’ legs, and an assortment of uber-athletic receivers shredded Penn State’s defense and made plays down the stretch.

In 2018, future first-round quarterback Dwayne Haskins and Dobbins led another double-digit fourth-quarter comeback.

When Penn State needed to convert a fourth down late in the game to survive, blue-chip edge rusher Chase Young wrecked that infamous 4th-and-5 to win the game.

In 2019, that chasm continued to grow as one-time Penn State commit Justin Fields took over at quarterback, and Young kept wreaking havoc. In 2020, Chris Olave matched Jahan Dotson’s brilliant night in an empty Beaver Stadium.

In 2021, TreVeyon Henderson ran for 152 yards, C.J. Stroud threw for 300 yards, and both Olave and Jaxon Smith-Njigba torched a beleaguered Nittany Lions defense.

In 2022, Marvin Harrison Jr. scorched the Penn State defense, but a talented group led by a sturdy veteran, Sean Clifford, led it back to take a fourth-quarter lead. From there, five-star edge rusher J.T. Tuimoloau single-handedly won the game for the Buckeyes.

“Maserati Marv” struck again to win a lower-scoring affair in 2023, absolutely frying Kalen King, then a first-round talent, so badly he began a long tumble down the draft board. The same happened in 2024, a winnable game where not enough plays were made.

In 2025, Jeremiah Smith made crazy play after crazy play en route to a second-half romping in Ohio Stadium.

Every year, Ohio State out-talented Penn State. It had too many athletes to overcome, and the Nittany Lions weren’t coached well enough to persevere.

Franklin’s struggles against Michigan came because Penn State lacked the stiffness in the trenches the Wolverines had.

In 2016, Michigan ran for 326 yards, while Penn State ran for 70.

In 2018, it was 259 to 68.

In 2021, the disparity was tighter, but Hassan Haskins ran for 156 yards on 31 carries.

In 2022 in the Big House, it was 418 to 111.

In 2023, it was only 227 to 164, but Michigan had so little respect for Penn State’s run defense that it told future first-round pick J.J. McCarthy not to attempt a single pass in the second half. You’ll never see that again in the history of the sport in a game like this.

There were some games that Penn State had the upper hand, namely the White Outs against weaker Michigan teams in 2017 and 2019, as well as the depressingly empty 2020 season, but it’s mostly not even close.

From 2016-25, Penn State had consistently elite RB play, but much of the time, they were silenced.

Saquon Barkley (2016): 15 carries, 59 yards (3.9 Yards Per Carry)
Miles Sanders & Tommy Stevens (2018): 17 carries, 66 yards (3.9 YPC)
Journey Brown & Co. (2019): 29 carries, 101 yards (3.5 YPC)
Keyvone Lee (2021): 20 carries, 88 yards (4.4 YPC)
Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen (2022): 12 carries, 35 yards (2.9 YPC)
Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen (2023): 25 carries, 115 yards (4.6 YPC)

Only Barkley in 2017 and Lee in 2020 consistently picked up yardage against the Wolverines over the last decade of dealing with Michigan.

Franklin had control of this program for 12 years, but he never picked a side. He never went all-in on recruiting the athletes to keep up with Ohio State, but also never went all-in on establishing the trenches.

As such, when you play the middle as a consistently above-average team, you’re cannon fodder to the guys who lean on an identity.

The closest Penn State came was in the Trace McSorley and Barkley connection from 2016-17, but the team lacked the ancillary talent around them and fumbled late-game execution in the ensuing years.

They had a good, but not great, quarterback in Clifford who always gave the program stability at the position, but was never able to truly sling it with the Fields and Strouds of the world.

When they got the big-arm quarterback in Drew Allar, who had the talent at the position Penn State sorely lacked, it proceeded to surround him with absolutely zero downfield threats.

All respect to KeAndre Lambert-Smith, Tre Wallace, Omari Evans, Trebor Peña, etc., but you’re playing a different sport when Kyle McCord and Will Howard get to throw to generational talents NFL teams line up to pick in the first round.

Only one receiver that Allar ever played with, Lambert-Smith, was drafted into the NFL. He was a fifth-round pick after a year at Auburn. A Penn State receiver has not been drafted since Parker Washington in 2023.

Penn State’s identity in the Allar era was, instead, to be more like Michigan. After years of being a baby Ohio State that was never able to recruit athletes to match them, it went all-in on running backs and tight ends, two program strengths.

It got it within a drive of the national championship, but the lack of sustainable downfield passing ended its season against Notre Dame. The next year, when Tyler Warren moved on, Nick Singleton regressed, and none of the receivers in the portal popped; we shouldn’t have been surprised when the house of cards crashed down.

With Campbell, we’re seeing the same thing, even if it is more excusable given the circumstances. In the last two weeks, you saw two teams with very different play styles dismantle Penn State’s defense.

Northwestern bullied the Nittany Lions in the trenches the way the Wolverines did during the Franklin era, to the tune of 413 rushing yards. Eight days later, a USC team that prides itself on downfield passes and elite speed out wide grilled an ill-prepared secondary, just like Ohio State used to.

Campbell said it himself: there’s no real identity at Penn State right now.

Sure, if Koby Howard were healthy, we could see the Nittany Lions leverage his speed and Chase Sowell’s with Rocco Becht to create a dangerous downfield passing attack, but did you see how erratic Becht was against Wisconsin and Northwestern?

He’s a fine quarterback, but he’s no Stroud, Fields, Dante Moore, Jayden Maiava, etc. Sowell and Brett Eskildsen are no Maserati Marv, Olave, JSN, or Smith. Maybe Howard could be, but he’s hurt.

Penn State was forced to try to build an identity on the fly after a long coaching search and a team with over 60 new faces.

The foundation that stayed here was forced to learn with a new coaching staff and new teammates. The few holdovers, guys like Terry Smith and Dan Connor, were outnumbered by a massive new staff.

Looking back, maybe folks were too optimistic about a team that, by and large, moved from the Big 12 to the Big Ten. The gap between the Big Ten/SEC duopoly and everyone else is growing by the year. The play styles are totally different.

Folks shouldn’t have been surprised that an offensive line full of transfers from Iowa State and Texas State is struggling with Big Ten physicality.

The defensive line, also predominantly from the Big 12, struggling to match up with Big Ten trench play shouldn’t be surprising, no matter how big they are.

It’s a learning experience for this staff, who definitely couldn’t have perfectly accounted for everything given the circumstances, but it’s one that needs to be addressed the second this season ends. Whether it’s after the final game against Maryland or a bowl game, the roster needs reconstruction.

Penn State lacks an identity.

Under Paterno, it rallied around the Grand Experiment and a pride in playing for a coach who wanted the team to be more than just great football players. Did it sometimes lead to the same “one foot in, one foot out” that saw struggles in big games late in his tenure? Sure, but the Penn State way was entrenched as a way of life.

O’Brien didn’t have enough time to build an identity in the wake of the sanctions before leaving after two years for the NFL. Franklin had the time, but didn’t build one in his 12 years.

Campbell might be trying to conjure Paterno’s Grand Experiment to, as he would put it, make great human beings, but college football is changing.

Recruits no longer sit down with a coach in his cushy office with their families and listen to his grand plan to make them better football players and set them up for success after college.

It’s about NIL; it’s about money; it’s about winning. Culture is less important than ever.

Culture is a locker room. You can claim to have a culture and still lose.

An identity is on the football field, and it’s something Campbell has to figure out going forward if Penn State is ever to reach the ceiling that many around this program believe is attainable.