What happened?

I don’t think anyone who analyzes, talks, or writes about Penn State football will truly ever know. But one thing is clear. The Nittany Lions brought back a ton of talent from last season’s 13-3 squad and the expectations were extremely high, but the leadership from the top down just hasn’t been good enough.

Penn State faithful had to stomach yet another top 10 loss under head coach James Franklin in a double overtime defeat to Oregon a few weeks ago in a home environment that the Nittany Lions should have been able to come out of with a victory. At PSU, Coach Franklin is 1-15 against top-5 teams, 4-20 against top-10 teams and 16-28 against squads ranked in the top-25. But fans could still stomach the Oregon loss with the whole season still in front of the program and the College Football Playoff giving PSU some room for error.

However, last week’s historically bad loss to 0-4 UCLA took the mood of the Penn State fan base to upset, but still optimistic, to all-time Defcon 5 levels.

A host of writers, TV personalities and respected college football analysts were on the record this week that it’s time for Penn State to move on from James Franklin. And I don’t have to tell anyone reading this column today on how the Penn State fan base currently feels about Coach Franklin at the present.

I want to preface my statement on the Nittany Lions future with this. I think James Franklin is a great person and a really good football coach. I think he truly cares about his players and he works hard to prepare them for life after football. He’s been great in the State College community and despite the top-five and top-10 losses, he’s built a top-10-15 program in the country.

But, it’s time for the Penn State football program to move on from James Franklin.

The loss at UCLA showed that this team is not playing with fire or physicality and the schemes on both sides of the ball are not working. That’s on the head coach. It’s on the head coach to have his team prepared week in and week out. With a team as talented as PSU, it should not matter if you’re coming off a tough loss and it should not matter that you have to fly across the country. Those are not excuses that can be accepted at a program the caliber of Penn State.

And for those of you who want Coach Franklin gone now, it’s not going to happen. His buyout is $56 million, so if they do decide to part ways with him, it won’t be until after the season when the number drops to $48 million. And still, that won’t be easy with a $750 million renovation currently going at Beaver Stadium. Honestly, a disappointing season like this could not have come at a worse time for the Penn State football program.

My best advice to anyone who follows PSU football on a weekly basis is to just dig in and lower your expectations, because it’s going to be a long season.

Let’s now talk about scheme.

The Nittany Lions’ run game has been one of the many disappointments so far this season. I, as well as many people who know a lot more about football than me, talked about how PSU needed to make changes on offense. I think those suggestions and analysis definitely fell on deaf ears.

To me, it’s not too complicated. Your job as an offensive coordinator is to put the defense in conflict. Two basic ways you can do that are with an RPO offense with a dual-threat quarterback or you run the ball effectively in a more traditional under center pro-style offense where you can utilize play-action passing to create explosive plays.

Penn State looks to be trying to run a RPO style offense with a quarterback that is not a quick twitch runner or thrower and it creates negative plays, puts them behind the sticks and then it just seems to all fall apart from there. Penn State is 71st in third down offense (40 percent) because of the negative plays putting them in third and long. The few times in the game against UCLA where they went with a traditional single back set and the running backs were able to get downhill either on a toss, stretch or dive play the rushing attempt would pick up five-plus yards.

I do not understand why you would not want to replicate that more with a guy like Kaytron Allen in the backfield who is averaging seven yards per carry and has six rushing touchdowns. Allen should be getting 20 carries a game and then they should be mixing in play-action pass and traditional shotgun pass to open up the field.

And I think everyone can agree that the jet sweep looks with Trebor Pena need to go back in the bin. I like Pena and I think he’s a good player, but on a fourth and short play with the game on the line, you should be able to have enough confidence in your experienced offensive line and running back duo to not run a fake jet sweep/quarterback power.

Defensively, Penn State is going to need to find a way to operate a lot more effectively without linebacker Tony Rojas, who was lost to a season-ending knee injury last week in practice. UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava torched the PSU defense for 128 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns and he did so because the coaching staff never made an adjustment to spy him. And when and if they did, they did not put a player in that role that was effective.

Coach Franklin said that would usually be Rojas’ role, which I get, but this is a Nittany Lions team with a lot of talent. You can’t tell me they couldn’t find one guy athletic enough on their roster to at least make Iamaleava dodge a defender to slow him up a little bit. And again, if you’re not preparing other players to be able to come in and play that role if you need someone to spy an athletic quarterback, then again that comes down to the head coach.

Penn State (3-2) will take on 3-2 Northwestern today (3:30 ET, FS1) for homecoming weekend. The Wildcats defeated UCLA two weeks ago 17-14.

Las Vegas has Penn State as a 22-point favorite over the Wildcats.

It really is anyone’s guess on what type of team is going to show up this afternoon in Beaver Stadium. I imagine the atmosphere is going to be contentious at the start of the game, and if Penn State doesn’t play well early then it could get really ugly inside Beaver Stadium.

Again, I think the Nittany Lions’ coaching staff needs to really focus in on a physical style of football and call the game that way on both sides of the ball. Give the ball to Allen in traditional running style formations and then use play-action to take your shots. Also, if some of the veteran guys, whether on the offensive line or at wide receiver or anywhere on defense aren’t giving you what you need then go to some of your younger talent. There’s no better time than now to do that.

I heard so many good things about young wide receivers in freshman Koby Howard and redshirt freshman Tyseer Denmark all summer long and they have barely been on the field.

The Wildcats have been playing some pretty good football and they have been running the ball successfully, as they’re averaging 196 rushing yards per game. Northwestern has also been solid on defense, giving up just 17 points per game.

Stopping the run and Northwestern running back Caleb Komolafe will need to be priority No. 1. The defense needs to get back to playing fast and they need to fly around and make plays.

Forcing the Wildcats into passing situations should benefit PSU, with Northwestern quarterback Preston Stone throwing six interceptions on the season. The Wildcats are minus-six in the turnover department on the season.

My pick is: Penn State 31, Northwestern 17.