When James Franklin sat at the podium for his introductory press conference as Penn State’s new head coach back in 2015, three words stood out for his plan to return the Nittany Lions to national prominence.

“Dominate the state.”

Franklin knew that for Penn State to start competing with the top programs in college football again, he needed to prevent the elite high school talent in Pennsylvania from signing elsewhere, which Penn State had struggled with mightily in recent years.

After signing just two of the 30 four and five-star recruits in Pennsylvania from 2012-2014, Franklin immediately delivered on his vow to dominate the state, as Penn State signed six of the nine top players in the state during his first full recruiting class in 2015.

Among that group was Saquon Barkley, Ryan Bates and John Reid, all key pieces in Penn State’s 2016 Big Ten Championship team.

Franklin later landed the top player in the state in his next three classes from 2016-2018. The 2018 haul, in particular, was a home run with six of the 11 four and five-star prospects signing with the Nittany Lions. Micah Persons, a potential top-five pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, was the headliner of the group.

After leading Penn State to two consecutive 11-win seasons in 2016 and 2017 and engineering drastic improvements on the recruiting trail, the Nittany Lions seemed very close to ascending into the elite tier of college football programs.

They had emerged as arguably the second-best program in the Big Ten behind Ohio State, beating the Buckeyes in 2016 and suffering back-to-back one-point losses in the two years that followed.

Following Penn State’s 27-26 loss to Ohio State in 2018, where the Buckeyes scored 13 unanswered points in the final seven minutes to shock the Nittany Lions in Beaver Stadium, Franklin emphatically proclaimed in his postgame press conference that Penn State would work tirelessly ascend from a great program to an elite one, like Ohio State.

All it would need was to accumulate a few more blue-chip players, and given Penn State’s recent success on the field in recent years, landing the requisite elite talent to go from great to elite seemed attainable.

But since then, Franklin has not delivered. The 2018 class that included three five-star players seemed to be a sign of things to come, but in three classes since then, Penn State has signed only one five-star prospect. Two of the five-star signees from the 2018 class (Ricky Slade and Justin Shorter) have transferred.

Losing five-star wide receiver, Julian Flemming, to Ohio State in the 2020 class was a particularly crushing blow considering his high school is less than two hours away from State College and Penn State had long been considered a heavy favorite to land him.

Combine that with losing out on the top 2021 player in Pennsylvania in five-star offensive tackle Nolan Rucci to Wisconsin, another Big Ten school, and Franklin has now missed out on the top player in the state in three straight years.

In fairness, Rucci’s brother plays for the Badgers and Wisconsin has been an offensive linemen factory for years. However, his dad played football for Penn State and his mom played field hockey there too. The Rucci family is also Penn State football season ticket holders. Combine that with the fact Penn State's offensive line has struggled to rebuild since the program was levied with sanctions in 2012 as a result of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, and Rucci was a prospect Franklin could not afford to miss.

Since finishing with the No. 6 ranked class in the nation, according to 247 Sports, Penn State's national recrutiing ranking has plummeted in each of the last three years.

• 2019: 12th
• 2020: 15th
• 2021: 33rd

The 2021 cycle could have detrimental effects on Penn State for the forseeable future. The 2019 and 2020 cycles had only a combined eight four and five-star players in Pennsylvania, but the 2021 class was much more fertile with top talent, having 11 of such players.

Penn State does not have a commitment from any of the top-10 players in Pennsylvania in 2021. Ohio State and Pitt each have two while Clemson, Georgia, Florida and Wisconsin all have one.

The only way for Penn State to rise from great to elite is to land blue-chip players. Franklin has failed to do so each of the last three years, particularly in Pennsylvania.

Blue-Chip (4 or 5-Star) Recruits in Pennsylvania 

The good news is Penn State will have a chance to bounce back with 11 blue-chip players in Pennsylvania in the 2022 cycle, which also includes nine players ranked in the top-300 nationally. Nine more top-300 players reside in Pennsylvania the following year.

For the Nittany Lions to ever become an elite program, a recruiting class full of misses like the 2021 cycle cannot happen. Franklin needs to get back to owning the state like he was at the beginning of his tenure for Penn State to reach the level of an Ohio State.

Maybe Franklin’s prowess as a recruiter has been a bit overstated all along. Was the 2018 class an anomaly where everything just happened to fall into place? Or should that be the standard?

How Franklin does in the 2022 and 2023 recruiting cycles will provide more answers, but after his 2021 performance, it is clear that Penn State still has a long way to go before moving from a great program to an elite one.