If you’re a Penn State fan, how do you take the 27-26 defeat to Ohio State?

It stings, of course. The Nittany Lions had a 12-point lead with seven minutes remaining and ended up losing the game by one. It has to sting.

The question is, what happened in those final seven minutes that gave Ohio State that 13-0 burst? Penn State coach James Franklin has a thought:

“They’ve got great players and they’ve got great depth and they’ve had that for a number of years. I do think come the fourth quarter, we had guys play a lot more reps than they’ve ever played, and we started to wear down, and that showed.”

Ultimately, once it got down to crunch time, Franklin thought that Ohio State just had more depth and that his players wore down. That could certainly be part of it.

The Buckeyes churn out what seem to be top five recruiting classes annually now. Penn State is just starting to get these highly-regarded classes. The Nittany Lions are there and doing it, but not for as long as the Buckeyes have.

Depth matters. And Franklin knows it.

He said during Tuesday’s Big Ten teleconference that his team didn’t have enough left in the tank.

“We played our first-teamers at a much higher rep count than we have the previous games, and I think that put us in the position we were in,” he said. “But I also think that we ran out of gas a little bit in the fourth quarter.”