Plenty of offensive progress occurred for Penn State in its workmanlike 22-10 victory over hapless Wisconsin on Saturday, and I’d love to get right to it.

I’d love to expound on the efficient passing game and Miles Sanders topping the 1,000-yard mark for the season. And I will.

But there’s an elephant in the room, and it’s hard to ignore.

It seems to belong to Ricky Rahne.

For 57-plus minutes, Penn State’s first-year offensive coordinator showed off a game plan seemingly indicating he was moving to the good side of the learning curve. And then …

And then … the mother of all head-scratchers. Second down. Wisconsin out of timeouts. Penn State sitting on a hard-earned 12-point lead. On a nasty, cold and windy afternoon at Beaver Stadium, the Nittany Lions simply needed to get off the field and send their diehard fans home happy.

The one thing you don’t do to those fans is make them fret for a another 2 minutes by giving the Badgers a final chance to rally. You don’t remind those paying customers of recent late-game questionable play calls and clock mismanagement.

And yet, Trace McSorley wasn’t in the backfield. Suddenly Tommy Stevens is behind center. And here comes Sanders in motion, running right between center Michal Menet and Stevens just as the ball is being snapped. There goes the ball, sailing past two guys who don’t seem to know which of them is the intended target. And Wisconsin, of course, recovers.

Instead of getting the ball with under a minute left facing a long field, Wisconsin had the ball in plus territory with 2 minutes to work with.

It was a monumentally silly play-call. The fact that it ultimately didn’t matter doesn’t make it any more excusable.

Head coach James Franklin owned up to it in the postgame media session.

Whatever the case, these things need to stop happening. The elephant is not welcome here. In this season of growing pains, the late-game gaffes are annoying. In coming seasons, they could be devastating.

I’ve established myself as an adamant Franklin supporter, and I’m willing to give Rahne a season to grow on. He stepped into a major challenge when Joe Moorhead left for Mississippi State the same year three NFL-ready offensive superstars moved on to the professional level.

That said, college coaches make 6- and 7-figure salaries because 100,000-plus people willingly traverse treacherous mountain roads to sit on bleachers in windy, freezing weather for 3 hours at a time.

Credit: Matthew O’Haren-USA TODAY Sports

Penn State fans, like any other team’s fans, have expectations. When coaches can’t seem to make the obvious decisions your 10-year-old son or daughter would, it’s kind of aggravating.

Rahne has three games left this season to move completely out from under Moorhead’s shadow and prove that Saturday’s first 57 minutes are the true gauge of where he and his offense are heading.

Those first 57 minutes displayed a Penn State offense finally matching a game plan to its personnel, the opponent, the weather and the needs of the team at large.

Eschewing the home run ball, McSorley and his receivers worked the short game to near perfection. Making a concerted effort to get leading receiver K.J. Hamler involved early, McSorley hit on 15 of 20 passes in the first half. That success opened up the running game, and a determined Sanders took advantage to the tune of 159 yards on a season-high 23 carries.

Penn State’s beleaguered defense finally got a break. The offense held the ball for a season-best 33:59, winning time-of-possession for only the second time this season. It registered a season-best plus-11 on first downs (23-12) and converted 6 of 15 third downs, including 4 of 8 in the first half. Converting 40 percent of third downs doesn’t warrant a parade, but it is Penn State’s best effort in Big Ten play and second best of the season.

For several reasons, Penn State needs to establish this ball-control style — not instead of Moorhead’s wide-open attack, but as its foundation. A purely finesse offense won’t work long-term in the smash-mouth B1G. As this season has proven, late-season weather can turn ugly quickly across the conference’s geographic footprint. And most teams, unlike Kent State, won’t repeatedly open themselves up to knockout punches before being softened up with a series of body blows.

For 57 minutes Saturday, Rahne got it right. You can quibble with the fact that McSorley threw only 5 passes after halftime, and that he ran more than necessary considering his sore knee. But boring efficiency was the order of the day against an injury-compromised opponent, and Rahne delivered.

And then the elephant showed up.

With Penn State at 7-3, Franklin has a path to a third straight 10-win season and top 10 final ranking. Barring an upset loss to Rutgers or Maryland, the Lions will finish this season on a streak of 33 games as a ranked team.

Even though McSorley and a couple other seniors will be sorely missed, the next two seasons beckon with huge breakthrough potential. If the young players in the trenches and through the middle of the defense make off-season gains in size and strength, Franklin’s quest for “elite” status might be in the offing.

But first, Franklin and Rahne need to vanquish the elephant.

At 38, Rahne earlier this year made ESPN’s “40 under 40” list of top college football coaches and staffers. He and Franklin need to get together and fix their end-game strategy. They need to have plans for protecting a two-score lead vs. a one-score lead. They need to have plans for killing 4 minutes of clock time vs. 2 minutes. When trailing, they need to be able to run a hurry-up offense without wasting timeouts.

In the best case scenario, these issues are nothing more than growing pains for a mostly young squad and relatively young coaches. Worst case, Rahne simply isn’t ready for the coordinator job, and Franklin has to make a tough call at season’s end.

If the games go as expected, Penn State should have opportunities to practice closing out victories the next two weeks.

It’s time for Penn State to finish like Lions, and send the elephant back to the big top. The circus has had a long enough run in Happy Valley. If Franklin and Rahne don’t send the pachyderm packing now, one or both of them eventually will end up leaving with it.