Penn State lost to Ohio State 27-26 on Saturday night, squandering a 26-14 lead with eight minutes left to play. While there were a lot of individual moments that led to the final result, the one most were harping on following the final whistle was Penn State's play call on fourth-and-5 from the Ohio State 43-yard line with 1:22 to play.

Why you would want to give the Ohio State defense the chance to dictate your play there instead of putting the game in quarterback Trace McSorley's hands, I'll never know, but Penn State went with the play it went with, and it didn't work. Ohio State won, and Penn State's got an uphill battle to fight if it wants to win the Big Ten and possibly reach the College Football Playoff.

Now, any loss is frustrating, but conference losses against top-five teams at home on national television are more frustrating than others, particularly when you lose by a point after having a two-score lead with less than half a quarter to play.

So no one should be surprised that Penn State coach was frustrated -- angry even -- after the game. He saw what happened on the field, likely knew immediately in the moment that his play call was a massive mistake and had to deal with that internally as he walked out of the stadium and on his way to the locker room.

And then a Penn State fan got involved. As Franklin walked to the back dejected, his frustration boiled over as a fan let him know he didn't agree with that fourth down call.

This is how you know that Franklin was well aware of his mistake and that it wasn't just fans or media bemoaning a play because it didn't work in the moment, which is what happens roughly 95 percent of the time. Franklin likely ignores the fan if he felt otherwise.

I know how he feels. I give gambling picks on Twitter all the time, and when the pick ends up losing, I hear about it from people. Most of the time it doesn't bother me. If I made the pick with sound logic behind it, and it doesn't work out, well, that's why they call it gambling. But then there are the times when I realize I just made a bad choice, and I should have seen it coming. Those are the times I'm mad at myself, and when some stranger on Twitter jumps into my mentions to tell me it was a dumb pick, I get mad at the stranger because I know it was a dumb pick and I don't need anybody to tell me.

And that's why, for one brief moment, Franklin wanted to climb into the stands and kick that fan's butt.

james-franklin.png

As I said, I understand how he felt in the moment. Imagine looking into the stands after a mentally and emotionally draining night and seeing Brett -- I'm going to refer to the fan as Brett because he looks like a Brett -- thinking he has all the answers.

Perhaps Franklin was calmed a bit by the fact that Brett was telling Franklin he loved him while also completely criticizing the job he did in that moment and on that night. But that's just Brett, man. He's always telling you how he feels whether you want to hear it or not, and sometimes Brett just oversteps his bounds and tells the wrong person how he feels, and it gets him in trouble.

The look in Brett's eyes makes me think he knew he should not have said what he said to Franklin. He doesn't want none of that. In fact, you could say Brett's lucky that Franklin had someone there to redirect him, because another couple steps forward may have been bad for Franklin, but they could've been worse for Brett.

brett.png

Of course, just because Brett's lucky this didn't go any further, that doesn't mean he doesn't have a right to be frustrated himself. Following the loss on Saturday night, Franklin's overall record against Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State fell to 3-10. We hear plenty of talk about how Jim Harbaugh's record against his division rivals, but Franklin hasn't done much better.

Franklin's overall record is a bit misleading, however, as Penn State went 0-6 against its East rivals in his first two seasons. Those were years in which Penn State was still trying to get back to full strength following NCAA penalties in the wake of Jerry Sandusky. The Nittany Lions are 3-4 against their division rivals since 2016, which isn't perfect, but it is relatively strong considering the difficulty of the competition.

But Brett's frustration likely comes from another place as well. Franklin talked about how he has a great team, but not an elite team, and it's possible the most significant difference between great teams and elite teams is knowing how to finish, and that's been a problem for Penn State.

The Nittany Lions are 26-6 since the start of the 2016 season, which is terrific. But did you know that Penn State held the lead during the fourth quarter of four of those six losses? That includes last season's loss to Ohio State in which Penn State had a 35-20 edge on the Buckeyes after three quarters, only to lose 39-38.

Until Penn State learns how to finish these games against top competition on a consistent basis, both James Franklin and Brett will continue to be frustrated. As will this guy behind Brett, we'll call him Tim.

tim.png

Tim's pretty frustrated, too, and I don't think either Franklin or Brett want to mess with him.

Anyway, onto the rest of the weekend.

Worst Play Call of the Week

It wasn't Penn State's fourth-down call! No, the worst call of the week took place in Louisville's loss to Florida State. The Cardinals were up 24-21 with under two minutes to go. They had the ball and had just picked up a first down. All Louisville had to do was run the ball a few times, possibly pick up another first down and finish the game, or at least chew some clock, force Florida State to use its timeouts, and kick a field goal to go up six. Instead, Louisville decided to pass, and A.J. Westbrook jumped the route to pick off the pass. Five plays later, Florida State's Nyqwan Murray caught a pass, broke a tackle, and took off for a 58-yard touchdown that won the game for Florida State.

"I look back at it, obviously, I should have ran the ball," said Louisville coach Bobby Petrino following the loss. "I did know what they were in, and I was expecting him to throw the hitch into the field. It's my job to make sure we're on the same page. I didn't get that done."

The loss drops Louisville to 2-3 on the season and 0-2 in the ACC. If there were any Louisville fans Petrino wanted to fight after the game, there's no video of the incident available.

Stat of the Week

UCLA lost to Colorado on Friday night to drop to 0-4 on the season ... and 0-4 under Chip Kelly. During his four-year run at Oregon, Kelly lost seven games, and it wasn't until his 26th game at Oregon that he suffered the fourth loss. And now that he's 0-4 at UCLA ,if you include his time in the NFL, Kelly's teams have gone 2-18 in his last 20 games as a coach.

Missed Call of the Week

Should this have been a targeting call on Baylor coach Matt Rhule?

OK, seriously, Rhule could handle Brett, Tim and Franklin at the same time.

Random Ranking of the Week

It's the first day of October, which means it's my birthday month, so I'm ranking birthdays.

1. 21st
2. 18th
3. The
4. Rest
5. Suck

All rankings are final!

Perception Poll of the Week

Arkansas, Nebraska, Tennessee and UCLA all lost again this weekend, prompting me to ask Twitter a simple question: Which of those four programs would you rather be right now? Here are the results.

It's somewhat surprising, no? Nebraska is 0-4, and of the four schools listed, it's located in the area with the least fertile recruiting base. At least both Tennessee and Arkansas are in the SEC, and UCLA is in California.

I guess the appeal of Nebraska is that it's in the Big Ten West, and maybe the path to success in that division has fewer obstacles to contend with? Or perhaps more Nebraska fans voted than anybody else.

I don't think it's the wrong answer. I'm just surprised it won by such a wide margin.

Worst Penalty Call of the Week

Michigan running back Karan Higdon is No. 22 in this video. He's the guy who fakes taking the handoff and is then tackled by the Northwestern defender. He's also the guy called for holding.

This call negated a big pickup from Shea Patterson at a time when Michigan was trailing in the fourth quarter, and it could have been a huge penalty call. At first, I thought the refs just called the hold on the wrong player, but I've watched this replay numerous times, and I'm yet to see a hold anywhere. The good news for Michigan is that it was only a temporary setback, and the Wolverines did win the game.

Degenerate of the Week

Trust the Process.

Stat of the Week II

Washington State rushed for 0 yards as a team against Utah on Saturday ... and won 28-24. After seeing this, I immediately wondered when the last time something like it had happened before, and it turns out this kind of thing happens more often than you might think.

Since the 2000 season, a team that rushed for 0 or fewer yards in a game has won 13 times, including Wazzu's win on Saturday. South Alabama did it last season, rushing for -3 yards in a 24-19 win over Arkansas State. Hell, it's not even the first time Washington State has done it. Mike Leach's boys rushed for -38 yards in a 37-32 win at Arizona State in 2016. Those -38 yards are the fewest rushing yards any team has had in a win since 2000. The next closest was Oklahoma finishing with -23 yards in a 37-27 win over Alabama in 2002.

AP Voter of the Week

Soren Petro works for Sports Radio 810 in Leawood, Kansas, and he has a vote in the AP Top 25. All season long, Soren has used this vote to put Clemson at No. 1 on his ballot. He wasn't always alone in this, but this week Petro is the only voter to have Clemson at No. 1. Now, this in itself isn't the worst thing in the world. What's ridiculous is that Petro has Alabama at No. 3 and has all season.

I can at least understand the idea of not moving a team down until it loses, but why have Alabama at No. 3 in the first place? Last I checked, Alabama is the defending national champion, and it beat both Clemson and Georgia -- Petro has the Dawgs at No. 2 -- en route to that title last season. And now this 2018 Alabama team looks even better than any team Nick Saban may have ever had.

It's also picked up wins against Louisville, Ole Miss and Texas A&M, winning its five games by an average of 41.2 points per game. Georgia is 5-0 and is winning by an average of 30.2 points per game, including wins against South Carolina and Missouri.

Clemson is 5-0 and has won those five games by an average of 21.2 points per game. It and Alabama have both played Texas A&M. Clemson beat it by two and Alabama beat it by 22. Now, Alabama played it in Tuscaloosa while Clemson went to College Station, but home field isn't worth 20 points. Also, Clemson narrowly avoided losing at home to Syracuse this week.

Simply put, nothing has happened on the field in the last two seasons to justify putting Clemson ahead of Alabama in your poll right now. And there sure as hell isn't a reason to have two teams ahead of Alabama in your poll.

There isn't any reasonable logic behind it.

College Football Playoff Projection of the Week

1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Notre Dame
4. Georgia

Until the next Monday After!