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Cory Giger

Would you rather PSU had beaten Oregon or landed in this bracket? Lions face far easier path to national title after loss

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas, Penn State. Your early present: The easiest playoff path for a No. 6 seed in the history of sports! Heck no, Penn State would not have been better off beating Oregon and winning the Big Ten title. The reward for being the No. 1 overall seed would have been a potential matchup with Ohio State in the second round of the College Football Playoff. Everybody should know by now that Penn State should never, ever, ever want anything to do with the Buckeyes when it comes to trying to win a championship. Unless a miracle occurs on the field, like it did in 2016, I ...

Has this been James Franklin’s best coaching job? Franklin looking like a coach you can trust in big games

What we saw at Minnesota a few weeks ago was a coaching clinic by James Franklin, who looked like a genius pulling one correct string after another with a fake punt and other gutsy calls to secure a victory. Given the recency bias, one could harp heavily on that game as a basis for saying this season has been Franklin’s best coaching job at Penn State. But during the Lions’ only loss, Franklin committed coaching malpractice with some of the most pathetic playcalling I’ve ever seen inside the 5-yard line trying to tie against Ohio State. Maybe all that was Andy Kotelnicki’s ...

Name the position group you’ve been impressed with the most.

For the record, I’m not the biggest Drew Allar fan. Still think he’s overrated, and still question how effective he’ll ever be in the NFL. But I want to give credit where credit is due, and to that end, I’ve been much more impressed by the quarterback this season. Furthermore, since we’re talking about a position group here and not just one guy, I also have been much more impressed by backup Beau Pribula. The first thing that jumps off the page when looking at Allar’s development is completion percentage. He’s at 70.3 percent, up significantly from last year’s figure ...

Will Penn State ever become consistently elite?

Too many obstacles in the way to become consistently elite By Cory Giger sports@altoonamirror.com No, Penn State will not become a consistently elite program. Why? Let me count the ways. 1. James Franklin is not a good enough coach. He beats up on weaker competition but is 1-14 against the top five and 3-18 against the top 10. Mic drop. But if you need more … 2. To become elite, consistently, means winning multiple playoff games most years. Penn State should be able to win a first-round game a lot of years, especially when it’s at home. That gets you in the final eight, ...

Penn State in need of fast start, effective Pribula to win

What is PSU’s best formula for beating Ohio State? By Cory Giger sports@altoonamirror.com Everybody keeps heaping all kinds of praise on Andy Kotelnicki as an offensive coordinator. Be that as it may, he needs to be doing his job better in the first half. The Lions scored seven points in the first half against Illinois (tied 7-7 at the break). They scored six points in the first half at USC (trailed 20-6). Kotelnicki’s incredibly creative playcalling on the first series of that game was masterful, but it only produced a field goal, and the offense managed just three more ...

PSU Point/Counterpoint: Are college football polls still relevant?

I love rankings! Always have, always will. I remember as a kid how I couldn’t wait to go to the store to see if they had a Street & Smith magazine preseason college basketball or football rankings issue. Man, I would spend hours combing through those things, back before the internet and when you couldn’t find much information on teams all across the country. Rankings were the best — and really only — way to compare your team against other teams. So, of course, the polls were pretty much gospel back then. Some will argue that’s not the case anymore, in an age when we have ...