There is no good answer for what happened to Penn State the last two weeks.
The potential end of the James Franklin era will be traced back to this moment – which happened in the Rose Bowl, of all places.
What? UCLA beat No. 7 Penn State 42-37 on Saturday in the most stunning upset of the 2025 college football season. Now, the Nittany Lions (3-2, 0-2 Big Ten) are flushed from the Big Ten championship race. Their College Football Playoff hopes are slim, and how Franklin manages it from here will define what happens in 2026.
Consider how inexplicable this truly was. UCLA (1-4, 1-1 Big Ten) fired DeShaun Foster and offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri, and interim coach Tim Skipper and interim offensive coordinator Jerry Neuheisel led this upset. UCLA had not led at any point in any game this season. It's the first loss by a top-10 team to a 0-4 opponent since No. 7 BYU lost 23-16 to UTEP at the Sun Bowl in 1985.
Rose Bowl. Sun Bowl. That is not how a gloom-and-doom story typically starts, yet it's not a stretch to say this is one of the worst losses in college football history in 40 years. How in the world did that happen?
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How did Penn State lose to UCLA?
Let's explore every possible reason why this happened.
The Oregon loss hangover. That could explain why UCLA jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. Penn State lost 30-24 to No. 2 Oregon in double overtime on Sept. 27, a soul-crushing loss after Drew Allar threw an interception on the final play of the game. That brought Franklin's 4-21 record against top-10 teams to light, but he had not lost to an unranked team since Oct. 23, 2021 – a non-sensical 20-18 loss to Illinois in nine overtimes.
Big Ten three-time zone trend. Maybe it was the well-documented travel trend that plagued Big Ten schools traveling to the West Coast. That is applicable for betting purposes, but not for true College Football Playoff contenders. No. 1 Ohio State beat Washington 24-6 last week. Indiana beat UCLA 42-13 and the Nittany Lions beat USC 33-30 last season. It's not like the Bruins had a home-field advantage with the Rose Bowl more than half empty. UCLA led 27-7 at halftime.
The QBs. UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava – the poster child for five-star QB transfers gone wrong – beat the Nittany Lions. Iamaleava hit 17 of 24 passes for 166 yards and two TDs. He added 128 rushing yards and three TDs with Neuheisel – the son of former UCLA quarterback Rick Neuheisel. Penn State seriously got Neuheiseled.
Penn State quarterback Drew Allar tried to lead a fourth-quarter comeback, but the marriage with offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki isn't leading to five-star production. Allar (19 of 26, 200 yards, 2 TDs) led a team that returned two 1,000-yard rushers from last season with 11 carries for 78 yards. It is not working.
The defense. Then there's Jim Knowles, the defensive coordinator brought in from Ohio State in the offseason for $9.3 million over three years. Penn State allowed 357 total yards to UCLA; one week after the Ducks had 424 total yards. Those teams averaged 36 points per game the last two weeks. That is nowhere near playoff-level defense, which is malpractice given the talent the Nittany Lions have.
That all set up a completely dysfunctional second half. UCLA actively tried to blow the lead on multiple occasions. Mateen Bhaghani missed a 56-yard field goal with 13:16 left in the third quarter. Penn State scored a TD on the ensuing drive. The Nittany Lions blocked a punt, which Liam Clifford returned for a TD, on the next possession. It was 27-21 at that point.
Then the teams traded TDs on four straight possessions. UCLA had the ball on its own 34-yard line, and decided to go for it on fourth-and-1. Anthony Woods stuffed Iamaleava. Then, Penn State had a fourth-and-2 with 41 seconds remaining, but Allar was stopped short of the first down.
UCLA took a bizarre safety on the punt – which is becoming an odd trend – but the defense held again and knocked Penn State out. The Bruins players stormed the field. That's the moment right there.
This is just awesome.
— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) October 4, 2025
Rick Neuheisel reacts to the final play of UCLA's win, with his son calling the plays for the Bruins. pic.twitter.com/ukWnYhNQUo
Will Penn State miss the College Football Playoff?
Let's do the best-case scenario first. Penn State could still galvanize behind this loss, win six straight games, knock off No. 1 Ohio State for the first time since 2016 and beat No. 8 Indiana the following week. What percentage chance would you give that of happening?
The more likely scenario is a 9-3 season that keeps Penn State – which was ranked No. 2 in the preseason on the heels of a run to the College Football Playoff semifinals last season – out of the CFP. How will that go over with an overly frustrated fanbase that was chanting "Fire Franklin!" when the team trailed 17-3 last week? Not well, even if it is probably enough to keep Franklin around into 2026.
There's a comparison worth making here. In 2006, Lloyd Carr led Michigan to an 11-0 start before a 42-39 loss to No. 1 Ohio State in the regular-season finale and a 32-18 loss to No. 8 USC in the Rose Bowl.
The Wolverines opened the 2007 season with a top-five ranking and an all-in roster that suffered shocking losses to Appalachian State and Oregon, and that was the unofficial end to the Carr era in Ann Arbor. He had the benefit of a national championship, too.
That was before the 12-team College Football Playoff, where two losses are not a deal-breaker to make the field. But Penn State does not have the benefit of a strong non-conference game, and again, it's UCLA. The Bruins lost to UNLV and New Mexico.
That is the reality of what Franklin faces now. Is this one of those situations where it might be better for Franklin to move on instead of facing the intense toxicity levels that are coming for the rest of the season and into 2026? Or will Penn State simply be content to move forward with a coach who has led the program to three straight seasons with 10 wins or more?
That is a tough question, one that also has no good answer. This is life at Penn State now.