Penn State's James Franklin narrows focus ahead of Big Ten championship game

For Penn State and coach James Franklin, there are plenty of factors at work making this week feel both routine and anything but.

The No. 3 Nittany Lions have another game Saturday, as has been the case for the majority of weekends dating to the end of August.

But their showdown against No. 1 Oregon (12-0, 9-0) in the Big Ten title game is far from typical, both in terms of stakes and quality of opponent.

All that said, Franklin is not about to change the weekly process that helped Penn State (11-1, 8-1) arrive at the doorstep of a league title and a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff.

“It’s back to a normal week schedule for us, in-season schedule and our coaches and players are ready to go and obviously, as you can imagine, pretty excited,” Franklin said. “We’re just kind of turning the page right now and moving on to Oregon, but not a whole lot will change except for, like, the normal adjustments you make late in the season.

“What you’re trying to do, as much as you possibly can, is to have the guys ready to play, but also making some adjustments and some modifications as the season goes on to make sure that we’re as fresh and as healthy as possible.”

The pros and cons of appearing in a conference championship continue to be debated as the 12-team CFP field prepares to debut this postseason.

Conversation and potential controversy largely center around the implications of losing league championship games, not only for Penn State but across college football.

What if, for example, the Nittany Lions get routed by the undefeated Ducks?

How will the 13-person CFP selection committee evaluate Penn State in that scenario, and how might that impact the Nittany Lions’ seeding, first-round opponent and potential route through the playoff?

Franklin doubtless has considered all of those things, but predictably, he’s not allocating much energy toward what-ifs.

“No. 1, I’m focused on the things that I can control, which is being prepared to play Oregon and play Oregon well,” Franklin said. “Those other things are outside of my control. I think everybody recognizes that we want to make sure that these (conference championship) games do not become a penalty. I think there’s been a lot of conversation about that, and there’s a bunch of really good football people that are on the committee that I think understand that.

“But besides that, at this time, I don’t have a whole lot of questions or concerns because I’m just totally focused on putting our team in the best position to beat Oregon.”

Franklin said he will divert his attention, however briefly, to the recruiting front this week.

From Wednesday through Friday, recruits can turn in national letters of intent during the early signing period ahead of February’s traditional national signing day.

The winter transfer portal entry period opens Dec. 9.

Per Rivals, Penn State has 25 verbal commits as part of its Class of 2025, which ranks No. 16 nationally.

Franklin thus plans to allocate a bit of time with the newest additions to his program who will be signing this week.

“I’ll be involved with signing day with the recruiting staff, but none of the assistants will,” Franklin said. “Typically, we’ve all been involved, but with this being in-season, that’s going to be hard to pull off. So I’ll step away from game planning for maybe an hour or so to welcome the recruits and their families into our family. But that is really about it.”