Stock Up, Stock Down (9.28.26)

STOCK UP

D’Anton Lynn

It’s tough to find much positivity from the Wisconsin game, but it does appear that D’Anton Lynn knows what he’s doing. Yes, the Penn State defense conceded touchdowns on Wisconsin’s final two drives, but this was a defense that had to basically do everything on Saturday. Here’s the Wisconsin drive chart through 3.5 quarters:

Drive #1 – Punt: 3 plays, -2 yards
Drive #2 – Punt: 4 plays, 12 yards
Drive #3 – INT (TD): 4 plays, 26 yards
Drive #4 – INT: 3 plays, -3 yards
Drive #5 – Punt: 3 plays, 7 yards
Drive #6 – TD: 11 plays, 75 yards
Drive #7 – Punt: 6 plays, 15 yards
Drive #8 – FG: 3 plays, 6 yards
Drive #9 – Punt: 3 plays, -3 yards
Drive #10 – Punt: 9 plays, 27 yards
Drive #11 – INT: 1 play, 0 yards

That’s 160 yards on 51 plays. That’s 3.13 yards per play. Three drives where the Badgers couldn’t gain positive yardage. Three drives where Wisconsin turned the ball over. Just two drives went longer than six plays. Only one drive went more than 30 yards.

This isn’t to excuse the final two drives from the defense. At the end of the day, they needed to make one more stop, and they decidedly did not do that. But, man, they shouldn’t have been in that spot to begin with if the Penn State offense could have put together a sustained drive in the fourth quarter. Instead, the defense was repeatedly put back on the field after three-and-outs — four of them, to be specific.

I still have questions about how this defense will fare against more pass-happy attacks — see: USC — because the pass rush just isn’t very good, and the safeties are better when they’re playing closer to the line of scrimmage. But this is a really good defense, and one that should keep Penn State in just about every game it plays.

Georgia Bulldogs

I’ll be honest: I haven’t seen a ton of what I’d consider “elite” teams in college football this season. That shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise given NIL and the way it has distributed some of the talent away from the top three or four teams and toward the top 15-20 teams. But still, I see Texas ranked No. 1, and my overarching takeaway from them is that I think they’re a 10-2 team.

If there’s one team that has impressed me the most, it’s the Georgia Bulldogs. Their schedule hasn’t been insanely tough — Tennessee State, Western Kentucky, at Arkansas and Oklahoma — but they are putting teams in the dirt.

63-3. 70-20. 45-17. 41-3.

Just completely dominating their opponents and doing it quickly.

The big test will come from October 10 through October 31, when the Bulldogs have Alabama on the road, Auburn, Florida and Ole Miss on the road. That’s when we’ll see if the Bulldogs are just another CFP team or if they are a legitimate No. 1 with the potential to run away with the whole thing.

STOCK DOWN

Matt Campbell

First and foremost, the fact that this needs to be said says something about the nuttiness — I say that lovingly, FTR — of this fan base, but I don’t want or think Matt Campbell should be fired. I know we have high expectations and last year kind of broke all of us, but the likelihood that Campbell was going to be Curt Cignetti and win literally right away was never very high.

I know that after the Franklin era, we were all hoping to pick right up where we left off, but winning in college football is hard. We compare ourselves and our program to Ohio State because that is who we are chasing, but the Buckeyes are in the midst of an absurd 25-year run.

Since 2002, Ohio State has had just two seasons in which it didn’t win at least 10 games in the regular season: 2004 and 2011. (I’m counting their 7-1 record in 2020, considering they played for the national title.) That’s it. They’ve won 85% of their games during that time, which is 5% higher than Alabama, despite the Crimson Tide winning six national titles during that span.

That’s how absurdly consistent the Buckeyes have been: another program won twice as many national titles as Ohio State during that stretch, and yet Ohio State still won more games at a higher rate.

I say all this because, other than Ohio State — which has gone from Tressel to Urban to Day without so much as a hitch — coaching changes can be messy, even ones that ultimately end up being successful. Look at the head coaches of the other four top-five teams and what each coach’s record was in his first season at the program:

Steve Sarkisian at Texas: 5-7 (Longhorns were 7-3 the prior season)
Kirby Smart at Georgia: 7-5 (Bulldogs were 9-3 the prior season)
Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame: 8-4 (Fighting Irish were 11-1 the prior season)
Mario Cristobal at Miami: 5-7 (Hurricanes were 7-5 the prior season)

This isn’t to say success is coming right up for Matt Campbell. There is, of course, a ton of context missing beyond those records that would lead one to believe Matt is not going to be Kirby Smart. But I bring it up to point out that first-year success is nice and great, but it isn’t necessary.

That being said, this is the “Stock Down” section, and to Matt Campbell I say: maaaaaaan, you are really putting yourself behind the eight-ball if this season goes off the rails.

I was not in the “Penn State needs to make the CFP” camp at all, but 9-3 with some fun wins — see: USC White Out or Michigan in the Big House — would really help the cause when it comes to getting more buy-in from the fan base. Giving away a 17-point lead to Wisconsin at home on Homecoming while the offense looked as inept as it ever has is the complete opposite of generating goodwill.

Mike Elko

Oh, Mikey Elko.

Last year around this time, you had Penn State fawning over you as you had the Aggies rolling, all the way to an 11-0 record and a brand-new contract extension for yourself. Since then, it hasn’t been exactly rosy.

You lost to Texas in the regular-season finale. You lost to Miami at home in the CFP. And now, you’ve started SEC play with two losses.

The first was to Kentucky, 31-21, at home. The other was a 35-6 shellacking on the road against LSU, a team and stadium where the Aggies won 49-25 just last year.

The ever-patient A&M fans are not happy, either with the coaching or the diet:

I’m curious to see how the Aggies’ season goes from here. They have Arkansas and The Citadel, which should be wins. Beyond that, though, it’s at Missouri, at Alabama, at South Carolina, Tennessee at home, at Oklahoma and Texas at home.

It’s not far-fetched to think 7-5 is the most likely outcome. How quickly the landscape and outlook can change for a coach in college football.