Wasson: Penn State is rolling. Is ‘Little Game James’ lurking in showdown at USC?

Before Tiger Woods invaded professional golf and exponentially exploded interest in what perennially staid, boring sport, guys on the PGA Tour were playing for 6-figure purses in front of aging galleries and a microscopic television market.

After Tiger, even PGA Tour players that are struggling to keep their cards make a million bucks per year, and the worldwide footprint of the game allows for golfers to become household names.

I think pre- and post-Tiger golfers much the same way as Penn State coach James Franklin, who has seemingly parlayed being in precisely the right place at the right time into a very lucrative existence – without winning much of anything significant.

Oh sure, the Penn State coach has won a ton of games in Happy Valley – 93, to be precise, in 11 seasons at the helm of the Nittany Lions. But what really has Penn State won since he took over from Bill O’Brien in 2014?

Bupkus.

In fact, it is usually right around now every season that the Nittany Lions completely lose the plot against a random opponent – torpedoing a special season down to a merely kinda successful season.

Which is precisely the portion of the schedule Penn State is about to enter, starting Saturday with a trip to once-ranked USC.

Conventional wisdom tell you that the Nittany Lions should pounce all over the Trojans. After all, USC just dropped a 24-17 game to Minnesota to tumble out of the Top 25. And Penn State is surging, ranked No. 4 and 5-0 in the Big Ten after downing UCLA 27-11.

But conventional wisdom is easily countered, seemingly every season, by the man they call “Little Game James.”

And this Saturday at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has Little Game James written all over it. Franklin has feasted on the guppies of the Big Ten and minnows on Penn State’s annual nonconference slates. But when Franklin’s Nittany Lions square up against teams that are ranked (yes, we know USC isn’t this week, but they’re awfully close), Penn State is suddenly the small fish in the bigger pond.

We are talking a 12-25 record against Top 25 teams, y’all. Which is a huge outlier for a coach with a 93-39 overall record at Penn State.

A recent sampling:

• 1-3 vs. Top 25 in 2023
• 1-2 vs. Top 25 in 2022
• 2-5 vs. Top 25 in 2021

Little Game James.

So what will be the difference this weekend when the Nittany Lions make the cross-country journey to Los Angeles?

That is a good question. Because USC is precisely the kind of team that not only can, but quite possibly will, knock the Nittany Lions out of the quickly winnowing undefeated ranks.

Yes, the Trojans have not enjoyed their Big Ten journey thus far – losing both winnable road games to the Golden Gophers and the Michigan Wolverines. But the Trojans at home have been a different story, knocking off Wisconsin and LSU behind solid play from junior quarterback Miller Moss (9 TD passes, 4 INTs).

Still, it will take more than solid for USC to move the ball in the air against the Nittany Lions. The Trojans rank among the bottom 5 teams nationally in explosive pass rate, and Moss’ ability to push the ball down the field (38-of-69 on passes that travel more than 10 yards this season) has to improve for USC to have a chance.

Penn State will also be helped by the return of junior running back Nicholas Singleton, who missed the UCLA game with a stomach bug. That will only improve the Nittany Lions’ ground game – which ranks 25th in yards per carry – under new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki and against a USC team that allows more than 5 yards per carry this season.

Still, this is the Big Ten – and the Big Ten football means playing defense. Penn State in untested defensively through the air, and Trojans coach Lincoln Riley is one of the best game-planners in the country. Putting Moss and the USC passing game in all the right spots could be the difference in a game that could easily go either way. (DraftKings Sportsbook lists Penn State as a 5-point favorite.)

Conversely, USC is ranked 13th in the country in passing yards allowed at just 157.6. Being able to contain Nittany Lions quarterback Drew Allar – a former 5-star recruit and No. 1 QB in the 2022 recruiting class who has been remarkably average in 2024 – and forcing Penn State to run the football against them will be critical.

And in all things, intangibles always come into focus. And that’s where Franklin’s mediocrity in these kind of games usually rears his neatly bald head.

Can Franklin and Penn State win a big one in the City of Angels and keep the Nittany Lions on track? Or will Little Game James strike again to knock a potentially stellar season down to yet another just-miss campaign in Happy Valley?

David Wasson

An APSE national award-winning writer and page designer, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.