Penn State fans thought they had something going. They thought 2024 was the beginning of a new era. However, a certain heartbreak and hopelessness was looming, which was further intensified as the Nittany Lions’ 2025 schedule dropped this week. And boy, did James Franklin have to take heat from fans. But before we talk about that…

The team went 13-3 in the 2024 season—their best record on paper in program history. While the numbers indicate nothing less than a dream season, the ground reality was much more worrying. The reason? Their seemingly easy schedule, which many argued, gave them the upper hand. However, a game against Oregon in the Big Ten Championship, which Franklin’s team lost 45-37, to keep their opponent unbeaten brought out a harsh reality. And then there was Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame that sent them packing in the Orange Bowl, in their debut run in the College Football playoff, with a close (but yet so far) 24-27.

Throughout the 2024 season, Penn State looked dominant—until you actually checked who they were playing. Their schedule seemed one of the easiest in the Big Ten. No Michigan. No Oregon and Indiana. Their 2 biggest tests? A December 7 game against Oregon (a 37-45 L), and No. 4 Ohio State—where they got defeated again with a 20-13. And just like that, reality hit. Happy Valley lost its faith in Franklin…

Instagram folks were already skeptical, and the 2025 schedule only quelled any remaining hope. On February 5, CBS Sports College Football’s official IG account shared the Penn State Nittany Lions’ schedule for the upcoming season, and let’s just say fans were hardly amused…

No more dodging. No more Big Ten schedule. Instead, Franklin will now have to go through to run through the gauntlet, and the internet has already written an ending to the story before it’s even begun.

Talking about the upcoming season’s schedule, the first three games are manageable—with an August 30 matchup against the Nevada Wolf Pack (3-10 in the 2024 season), a September 6 clash with the FIU Panthers, followed by a game vs the Villanova Wildcats on September 13. In Week 4 though, things are expected to take a massive turn. The Nittany Lions will face Oregon—the same Oregon that just sent them to the shadow realm in the Big Ten title game. And then comes an UCLA battle on October 4, a game vs Northwestern on October 11, followed by an October 18 game against the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Week 7? National champion Ohio State. On the road. In Columbus. What makes this schedule worse is that James Franklin is 1-15 against the top 5 AP polls teams. Worrisome, right? Well, wait till you hear the rest. Then they’ll need to deal with Curt Cignetti’s Indiana squad on November 8. Yeah, Indiana. The same Indiana that went 11-2 last season and is out here playing like they forgot they’re Indiana.

And then there’s a Michigan State game (November 15), with Nebraska (November 22), and the Rutgers (November 29).

However, even with all of this, Franklin isn’t backing down.

In fact, he went out and hired Jim Knowles, Ohio State’s former defensive coordinator, giving him $3.1 million a year—the highest-paid DC in the country. But the fans? They ain’t buying it. They’ve seen this movie before.

The fans lose their faith in James Franklin as his Kryptonite stands in their way

When CBS Sports posted Penn State’s 2025 schedule with the caption, “How many wins will Penn State get in 2025?” the internet wasted no time airing Franklin out. The responses were BRUTAL:

The fans started with Jim Knowles’ card, “Have OSU’s DC n still gonna lose to them.” Another fan bluntly put it out, “This is why nobody takes them serious.” This fan said, ‘same drama, different year’, “Just like every other season, they’ll beat bad teams and lose to any good team they play. 10-2.”

The last fan summed it up writing, “They’ll win every game but the big ones.” James Franklin is the ultimate front-runner. He can bully the bad teams all day, but when it’s time to step up against elite competition? There’s a bit of a shortfall, according to many. The 2025 schedule is the biggest test of his career, and the fans already seem to know how this one plays out.

However, if you ask Knowles, he’s fully confident things will take a turn…A͏t hi͏s intro͏ductory ͏press conference on Wednesday, the DC said, “Yeah, it’s the next month, right, it’s literally sitting down, step-by-step, and I’m going to do it differently here than I’ve probably done it anywhere…We’re now looking at the things that were done here in the past. I’m learning that, right, because there has been success, so I don’t want to come in and just say, ‘This is what I’m going to do,’ it’s not going to be like that here.”

“Coach Franklin’s built a great defensive culture. They’ve had excellent defense here, so I’m going to look at it, step-by-step, to see, you know, what we can retain and then start to teach the guys…yeah, shout out to those assistant … they’ve done a great job because, like, when you can have defense that’s upper tier and go through a couple coordinators, that means that the assistance is doing a hell of a job. So, shout out to those guys.”

Having said that, maybe this is the year Franklin proves everybody wrong. Maybe Jim Knowles really is the missing piece. Penn State fans buckle up. It’s gonna be a long season.