Post-Game Link Dump: Michigan State

Penn State wrapped up their regular season in East Lansing with a loss to Michigan State on Saturday, and here's your postmortem:

We'll start with Mark Wogenrich of the Morning Call, who calls it the worst loss of the James Franklin era. He also placed it just behind Vanderbilt's 48-3 loss to Georgia for Franklin's career. On points alone, he's correct, but I'd put the Michigan State loss behind Temple and last year's Illinois loss in a discussion of "worst" losses.

For the hottest take, we can rely on David Jones of PennLive, ready to proclaim the "Gap between Penn State and Big Ten East's heavyweights is a canyon and not narrowing soon." He also likened the program under Franklin to a puppet show, however, he did rightly point out the offensive line isn't likely to be much better next year based on personnel alone.

In the immediate aftermath, Christian Hackenberg said he wasn't "really thinking about [his] future too much." When asked about the NFL's Draft Advisory Committee, he mentioned he doesn't "even know where to go or how the process goes, to be completely honest with you." Now, with a new offensive coordinator, the chances he returns are still very slight, but maybe?

On the day when Saquon Barkley surpassed D.J. Dozier to set the season rushing mark for a freshman, Greg Pickel notes there is still optimism in the loss. Along with Chris Godwin, who points out "we have a lot of young talent that's coming back," sometimes youth just needs time to grow.

At Black Shoe Diaries, we have an illustrious Matt de Bear one-two punch with his three key takeaways and "Hey, Wha Happen" recap.

Lastly, this was pre-game article, but Jourdan Rodrigue of the Centre Daily Times had an incredible article about Sean Spencer and his father that everyone should read.