Michigan

Penn State could mimic Michigan’s College Football Playoff run, but James Franklin isn’t Jim Harbaugh

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1 year ago

January 8, 2025

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Penn State could mimic Michigan’s College Football Playoff run, but James Franklin isn’t Jim Harbaugh

Penn State gives off 2023 Michigan vibes. Put it this way: Jim Harbaugh could win a national title with this Penn State team.
What about James Franklin?
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman describes Orange Bowl opponent Penn State as ‘talented, disciplined, tough.’ All true.
James Franklin’s history in big games might explain why Penn State has longest odds of winning national championship among CFP semifinal teams.

College football’s bards mused this playoff lacked a dominant team, like 2019 LSU or 2020 Alabama, although Ohio State sprints closer to resembling those past juggernauts.

What about 2023 Michigan, though? Anyone guilty of being the Wolverines’ doppelganger? You know, that team that went undefeated a year ago, but doesn’t garner the same respect as some recent champions from the SEC? (Michigan’s cheating might have something to do with that.)

Look inside the Big Ten to spot a potential Michigan 2.0.

I give you Penn State.

Let’s tour the Nittany Lions:

∎ Bruising defense, equipped with dudes who wreak havoc and live in the opponent’s backfield.

∎ Two splendid running backs, one as good as the other.

∎ A pass attack that highlights a tight end suited for the NFL.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. Should I keep going? OK.

∎ A veteran quarterback enjoying a career-best season.

∎ Dependable offensive line.

∎ Efficient in the red zone.

Who’s this sounding like? It’s sounding like 2023 Michigan.

Penn State can replicate Michigan if James Franklin shakes past

A key difference is that Michigan enjoyed undefeated distinction, while Penn State lost to Ohio State and Oregon.

Another difference? Penn State employs no one in a cheap disguise stealing the opponent’s signs.

But, the absence of a Connor Stalions doesn’t much influence Penn State as much as the presence of James Franklin. His baggage in big games introduces an overdose of doubt toward the Nittany Lions.

Why do sportsbooks give Penn State the longest odds of winning the national championship? Franklin’s paltry performance in games of magnitude, like Penn State’s Orange Bowl matchup with Notre Dame on Thursday, must play a factor.

Ohio State fans grumble about Ryan Day’s flops, but Day’s shortcomings mostly center on one opponent. He stinks against Michigan, but you won’t find Michigan in this playoff.

In the absence of their kryptonite, Day and the Buckeyes emerged stronger in the postseason. Day never has faced his Cotton Bowl adversary, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, but he’s a combined 8-0 against the two coaches opposite Ohio State on the bracket, Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman and Penn State’s Franklin.

Day beat Franklin for the sixth consecutive time in November, when his Buckeyes emerged from Happy Valley with a 20-13 victory. A game that started with the Nittany Lions building a 10-point lead ended with Franklin shouting at a heckling fan while the coach exited the field.

As good as Penn State looked in its first two playoff victories, those results didn’t reverse Franklin’s narrative in marquee games. No one would mistake SMU for Notre Dame. No blue blood runs in Boise State’s veins, only blue turf.

Examination of Penn State’s playoff victories, though, reveals shades of Michigan.

“It’s a very talented, disciplined, tough football team,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said of Penn State. “Very creative offense. Utilizes a bunch of different personnel, a bunch of different formations. Going to force you to be extremely disciplined.”

That’s not coach-speak. Freeman accurately described Penn State, and facing Franklin’s squad will be a lot like looking in the mirror for Notre Dame.

THREE KEYS: Breaking down the Notre Dame-Penn State matchup

UNSTOPPABLE: Penn State tight end Tyler Warren is unique weapon

Notre Dame the type of team that beats James Franklin

Here’s the quiet part no opposing coach would say out loud: Franklin shrivels against opponents of Notre Dame’s stature. He becomes a bespectacled turtle upon sight of a big dog. He’s pitiful against top-five teams and the biggest brands.

Penn State fans won’t need this reminder, but for the rest of us, consider Franklin’s Penn State record against these opponents:

vs. Ohio State: 1-10

vs. Michigan: 3-7

vs. Michigan State: 5-5

vs. SEC opponents: 2-4

Franklin avoided embarrassment by smashing SMU and handling Boise State. He’d earn respect by beating Notre Dame.

Trust Penn State in Orange Bowl means trusting James Franklin

Jim Harbaugh performed woefully bad in the postseason before winning the national championship. You don’t win the big game until you do. Michigan’s khaki king never won a College Football Playoff game until he burned his blaze of victories last season, not stopping before he’d left for the NFL.

Kirby Smart and Dabo Swinney are college football’s only active coaches to have won national championships, meaning that no matter who’s celebrating on Jan. 20 in Atlanta, a coach will have captured his first national title.

Could it be Franklin? The team’s makeup indicates yes. It’s not the most complete left in the bracket – looking at you, Buckeyes – but Penn State resembles 2023 Michigan, and 2023 Michigan would contend in this tournament.

Previously, I’ve labeled Penn State a light beer version of 2023 Michigan, but there have been plenty of games this season in which the Nittany Lions played like a full-bodied brew, and there’s nothing watered down about Penn State’s superstar tight end Tyler Warren or defensive menaces Abdul Carter and Kobe King.

Put it this way: Harbaugh could win a national championship with this Penn State team.

I like the team. I just don’t entirely trust the coach.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.

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Michigan

Max Bullough brings lineage and lessons for Michigan State defense

Published

8 hours ago

April 14, 2026

Press Room

Max Bullough brings lineage and lessons for Michigan State defense

East Lansing — It’s 6:30 a.m. but the energy is high inside Michigan State football’s practice facility as Max Bullough barks out orders to his group of linebackers who watch him with rapt attention. At 34 years old, the Traverse City native looks as though he could go through these drills himself. He probably wants to.

Now, the former two-time MSU captain Bullough returns to East Lansing. To the same stomping grounds where his grandfather Hank once plodded the sidelines for Duffy Daugherty. Where his father Shane once captained a team for George Perles. Where he and his brothers Riley and Byron each played for Mark Dantonio, including Max’s captaincy of the 2013 team that won a Big Ten championship and earned a ticket to the Rose Bowl.

A Rose Bowl he never got to play in.

With Bullough, it felt like a matter of when, and not if, a homecoming would occur on the sidelines. And with that reunion would come the inevitable question: Why did his career end a game early, suspended from the Rose Bowl his senior season?

“Yeah, you’ve been dying to ask that one,” Bullough said. “Here’s my answer to that one:

“That was 13 years ago, right. So my focus and my energy and my attention is on the 2026 Spartans, and my beautiful wife, Bailey, and my four boys Rocky, Teddy, Banks and Murphy. We’ll leave the past where the past is. It has nothing to do with what we’re doing moving forward, and so let’s talk about the 2026 Spartans.”

Now that that’s out of the way.

As much as Bullough doesn’t want to talk about the past, it’s what his very hire harkens back to. He’s here to help revive a storied program that means so much to him that he has “Spartans” tattooed across both arms. He gets to raise a family where his family has played and coached, and where his grandmother, Lou Ann Bullough, still gets to every Michigan State basketball game she can. What would it mean for his grandfather to know he came back to join the coaching ranks?

“I don’t know how much he would tell me or not. You never got that much out of him that way,” Bullough said. “But I think at the end of the day, I think it would mean a lot.”

The first thing you notice about Bullough is his intensity, especially for Michigan State football. At least that was the case for new head coach Pat Fitzgerald, who had Bullough wrap up the first team meeting of the year for a new group trying to rise above 4-8 mediocrity a year ago.

“I gave him 90 seconds, I think he went 15 minutes,” Fitzgerald said Feb. 4. “Getting to know Max through the evaluation process when I was putting the staff together, you could sense very quickly his pride — beyond the double bicep — for the Spartan football program, the state of Michigan, his time here, and what he wanted to bring back, and that was toughness.”

Bullough’s part in an illustrious past for this program — in four years he went 40-12 and captained the Spartans his junior and senior years, an honor that means a great deal to him — is a major cultural building block for a staff trying to reestablish principles of the era of Dantonio, who is around more often since Fitzgerald got the job. Thankfully it all worked out, Fitzgerald says.

“He’s got a bright future ahead of himself in his career, and we wanted to make sure,” Fitzgerald said, “coming here is obviously easy to say of course, he’d want to come home. But it also had to fit looking at his three-, five-, 10-year plan for his career.”

Bullough was brought in for the next two seasons on a contract paying him $750,000 per year. When he stepped on campus as an assistant coach was only the second time he’d stepped food on campus since he graduated. The other time was when he was an honorary captain in 2015.

“There’s a lot of new buildings, this whole place,” Bullough said. “That’s the question y’all should ask. This place looks completely different.”

In Bullough, though, there’s a connection to history that feels further and further following four straight losing seasons.

“He’s brought energy, brought enthusiasm. He brings a lineage,” defensive coordinator Joe Rossi said April 7. “He understands what it means to be a Spartan, not only him but his family. So it’s been awesome.”

As an understudy to Rossi, Bullough is listed as a co-defensive coordinator in addition to his role as linebackers coach. Not only does that free up Rossi to “roam” around practices and observe his entire defense (last season, Rossi filled that linebackers coach role), Bullough also gains experience for later in his coaching career that has been impressive through stops at Notre Dame and Alabama. He’s a riser, of whom coaches and players speak highly.

Playing for Mike Vrabel while with the Houston Texans watered the genetic coaching seed in Bullough. It was at Notre Dame that Bullough really fell in love with being a college coach.

“Once I was able to get to Notre Dame and have my own room,” Bullough said, “which is where the magic comes for me, like when you’re able to coach your own room and have your own guys. Like the connection that you’re able to build with guys that are this 18 to 22 years old, especially when we’re able to bring (our) own guys in. Watch them come in, watch them develop, and see what they turn into in terms of football players and in terms of men.”’

Men who make mistakes, like he did with whatever incident caused him to be suspended for the biggest game of his career, as perhaps the most important player to that team. That’s not an incident he uses as an example for his players who face trying times, he says, but he does use his life experience as a model for the young men following him, including linebacker Jordan Hall, who likely will be a two-year captain just like his coach this upcoming fall.

“The message to Jordan is, people are drawn to you, brother, what energy are you giving back?” Bullough said. “Because you gotta be on it all the time. There isn’t any time where you can where it’s like you can be down. You have to be on it all the time.”

Bullough said there was one incident early in spring ball that Hall was frustrated he got pulled for a teammate to play. He got frustrated, didn’t handle it well. The next time it happened, Bullough says Hall became an asset on the sidelines.

“I think that’s a testament to the kind of guy he is and the teammate he’s striving to be,” Bullough said. “… He made a mistake the one day, and he got better from it. He’s helped me a lot. And, I mean, I can admit that. I know he and Coach Rossi are very close and that he knows Coach Rossi’s defense like the back of his hand. I have no problem asking ‘Jordan, how do y’all see this? How did we do this last year?’”

“If you guys notice, any of the drills he’s like right behind us, almost mirroring everything that we do,” Hall said March 17. “Very passionate. I mean, just a great ball-knower.”

cearegood@detroitnews.com

@ConnorEaregood

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Michigan

Former Eastern Michigan football player stands outside Lions facility, asks for chance on the field

Published

20 hours ago

April 14, 2026

Press Room

Former Eastern Michigan football player stands outside Lions facility, asks for chance on the field

Former Eastern Michigan football player Freddie McGee III went viral on Monday, doing anything he possibly could to get the Lions’ attention for a tryout to make the team.

“I felt I just needed to take matters into my own hands,” said McGee.

The Canton, Michigan, native, and reigning Defensive Player of the Year in the Arena Football League, says he arrived at the Lions practice facility in Allen Park at 8:45 a.m. Monday to beg for a chance to walk onto the Lions, just like how he walked onto Eastern Michigan’s football team a few years ago.

“This morning was a little nerve-racking, you know, this is definitely stepping outside of my comfort zone,” said McGee. “Just wanted to come out here, maybe catch the right scout, the right personnel person pulling in here, maybe take a look at the sign I have and get to know my story a little bit, maybe give me a shot today.”

Former Eastern Michigan University football player Freddie McGee stood outside the Lions facility in Allen in hopes of an opportunity on the field.

CBS News Detroit

McGee’s brave pitch to the Lions is that he’s not just a dreamer; he dominated the AFL last year with 14 interceptions and 25 pass breakups. And his story is one that he says exemplifies everything Dan Campbell and the Lions should be looking for: grit.

“Other than just being a local kid and growing up loving the Lions, I feel like I’m the epitome of grit, like my career hasn’t been easy, I’ve overcome a lot of adversity,” said McGee.

CBS News Detroit reached out to the Lions organization for comment and is awaiting a response.

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Michigan

Michigan Matters: Embracing Canada and Michigan Central Station children’s endowment update

Published

1 day ago

April 13, 2026

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Michigan Matters: Embracing Canada and Michigan Central Station children’s endowment update

It’s a look at the critical relationship between Canada and Michigan/the U.S. as former Michigan Governor and U.S. Ambassador to Canada James Blanchard and Colin Bird, Canadian Consul General, appear on Michigan Matters to talk about the state of things.

Blanchard, who has been promoting bilateral trade between the U.S. and Canada for decades, talks about how important Detroit and Michigan are to all with their focus on manufacturing, autos and agriculture.

Jim Blanchard and Colin Bird

Tim Lawlis/CBS Detroit

Bird, who oversees Michigan and three other states on behalf of the Canadian government, talked about how businesses in Canada have been impacted by tariffs for the past 18 months.

The two also discussed the importance of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which is done and awaiting the all-clear sign from Washington before it can open.

Then Andrew Stein, of the Children’s Foundation of Michigan, talked about the Michigan Central Station Children’s Endowment initiative launched by Bill Ford and his wife, Lisa, almost two years ago.

Desiree Jennings, Pam Bailey and Andrew Stein

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Tim Lawlis/CBS Detroit

The effort raised over $20 million as Stein discussed how 11 nonprofits were chosen to be part of the program from the 100-plus that applied.

Desiree Jennings of The Children’s Center, one of the 11 organizations, explained how the nonprofit — over 90 years old — will benefit as it helps more young people.

Pam Bailey, of Birth Detroit, a six-year-old organization, another selected for the endowment, explained what the non-profit does and how it will benefit.

Stein talked about endowments and how they help support the community.

(Watch Michigan Matters at its new time: 5:30 a.m. Sundays on CBS Detroit and 9:30 a.m. Sundays on CW Detroit 50 WKBD).

(Carol Cain is the 13-time Emmy-winning senior producer and host of Michigan Matters).

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