Penn State head coach James Franklin lead his team onto the field during an NCAA college football game against UCLA Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

It’s not the media that will decide the future of Penn State’s football program — not collectively and not thanks to some high-profile individual commentators or experts with hot takes.

But their voices matter, and they’ve agreed this week that something needs to change.

Those who vote for The Associated Press Top 25 offered a significant message — dropping Penn State out of the poll this week for the first time since September 2022.

The tumble was one of the largest in the 99-year history of the media poll.

So, Penn State, which started the season at No. 2, is making history — just not the kind anyone associated with the program, or its fans, want.

Still, any program-altering actions may largely happen out of the media and public eye.

It will not be the media or general fans who move the needle regarding coach James Franklin’s $50 million contract buyout.

That’s something for people with big influence and money who like to work with a little less attention on them. Or for some in the athletic department who want to find a financial path forward while the program is renovating Beaver Stadium and moving forward against growing financial pressures in the pay-for-play era in college sports.

The media has been piling on since the final whistle of last week’s unexpected loss to unranked UCLA. Perhaps appropriately. Perhaps necessarily.

Big Ten Network host Dave Revsine said there was “no evidence” Penn State could be better than it was against UCLA through the first part of the season. And Roy Philpott told Sirius XM listeners Penn State was “done,” with a bounce-back effort unlikely.

Pick your prognosticator, local, regional or national, from Landon Tengwall to Paul Finebaum, and the opinions largely distill down to the conundrum facing athletic director Pat Kraft.

It’s two opposing questions — a conflict even the most casual fan could figure out.

Can Penn State afford to make a change? Can it afford not to?

So, as this moves along, and whether some victories quiet things down or more excuses, injuries and unexpected outcomes stoke more flames, finding important, insightful information might get challenging.

It’s easy to pile on and speculate. Maybe it’s warranted in this situation, at this time, after all these seasons with Franklin in charge.

Some people with more measured opinions exist, though, and 10-win coaches are not common at college football’s top level.

How the media handles this going forward will be interesting.

Chasing a commissioner

Some national voices have been championing another

ill-fated cause — finding a college football commissioner.

The reasoning for those folks includes some key topics a commissioner could supposedly solve, like consistency and scheduling, for example.

In their eyes that means consistency for following rules. Unfortunately, there’s no way that every conference and every team from coast to coast would adhere to guidelines without harsh enforcement. A commissioner would not change that, but it would look like change.

In terms of scheduling, the media types championing a commissioner believe someone in charge would prevent overlapping big games, like Oregon-Penn State and Alabama-Georgia a couple weeks ago. That’s just silliness, though.

A commissioner and unified scheduling works in the 32-team NFL. It’s just not possible across all of college football.

And the more time those associated with college football spend seeking someone to save them from themselves is just more time wasted on the way to no meaningful solutions.

Great Gary

It’s his final season working college football games and Gary Danielson’s work has not suffered. He remains consistently strong at serving viewers, and that was on display last week during the Penn State-UCLA game.

He strives to critique, not criticize, and he did that strongly at times last week during the game broadcast by CBS Sports.

That included a line about his willingness to “nitpick the offense” for Penn State but at the same time adding “the defense needs to show up.”

Best of all, Danielson was spot on with his analysis about the likelihood of UCLA taking a safety late in the game. He was concise and prepared at the moment. Plus, when it was clear Penn State was not quite as prepared, he pointed that out as well.

Notable

ö Today is the second game of the season on FS1 for Penn State and the third for the Nittany Lions to kick at 3:30 p.m.

ö Former Penn State standout, NFL player, streaming pregame host and onetime NFL Broadcast Bootcamp standout Jason Cabinda was supposed to be the sideline reporter for Penn State-UCLA last week but technical difficulties prevented his contributions.

ö It’s always interesting when Penn State struggles and play-by-play man Steve Jones wears his heart and emotions on her sleeve. That leads to comments like the one he shared after Penn State’s late touchdown against UCLA that drew a penalty for excessive celebration. He quickly complained about the officials “regulating fun.”

ö It seemed like it would be more fun to watch UNC struggle under coach Bill Belichick this season, but the team’s games have been so uncompetitive that it’s not even compelling TV. No loss for the Tar Heels this week, though. They are idle after most recently losing to Clemson, 38-10. Up next, an Oct. 17 game at Cal.

Sampsell covers the broadcast end of Penn State football for Gameday. He can be reached at stevesampsell@gmail.com