EAST LANSING, Mich. — James Franklin sprinted toward the end zone, hustling as if every step he took could erase what had just happened at Spartan Stadium, as if he hoped to grab Penn State’s playoff hopes before they escaped through the tunnel for good.

He could do neither, of course. But he could get to the exit before Koa Farmer could walk through it. And that, to Penn State’s coach, ranked as something of an important job. He got to his junior linebacker, angrily pointed back toward the pile of happy Michigan State players and downtrodden Penn State ones shaking hands at midfield, and commanded him to join the group.

“That was my bad,” Farmer said afterward. “(Fans) were kind of just storming the field, kind of like Ohio State did. I don’t know, I was mad.”

But that held little water with his head coach.

“We are going to win with class,” Franklin said, “and we are going to lose with class. We are going to shake people’s hands and give them credit, because they deserved it.”

That mad dash stood as an example of something an animated Franklin pointed to often during his press conference following the Nittany Lions’ dream-crushing 27-24 loss to Michigan State on Saturday. This team, he hinted, just might not have handled success, or failure, the right way.

“We’re going to focus on ourselves and forget about rankings,” center Connor McGovern said. “Some people were focused on that.”

Franklin would agree.

Hard to believe that just two weeks ago, these Nittany Lions stood at 7-0, held the nation’s No. 2 ranking and seemingly were in control of their College Football Playoff destiny. While their hopes of repeating as Big Ten East Division champion are still on life support thanks to Iowa’s pummeling of Ohio State, the CFP is little more than a pipe dream at this point after back-to-back fourth-quarter collapses on the road against the Buckeyes and Spartans.

For that, Franklin wonders if all the success, all the hype, all the attention the Nittany Lions received after a blowout win over Michigan on Oct. 21 might have been too much, too fast for a team that despite its success is still relatively young.

“One of those things we’re going to make sure, whether there’s any gray area whatsoever with our coaches and with our players and anybody else, we’re going to go back to what got us here,” Franklin said. “Which is, focusing on being 1-0 and not worrying about anything else, whatsoever. You focus on being 1-0 each week, you achieve that, and everything else will take care of itself. I’m going to make sure that everybody in our building is crystal clear on that.

“I would call us a young program, in terms of the conversations we’ve been a part of for the last six to nine months, to a year. We’re not mature enough to handle that.”

Franklin specifically mentioned the outside “noise” Penn State players “have tried to manage” in recent weeks.

Players and coaches, he said, received plenty of compliments for winning games, then got “the complete opposite” when they lost to Ohio State. Playoff rankings, he pointed out, never mattered much before to Penn State until recently. Then, they became a major story around the program.

He blamed himself, partly, for losing focus on a formula he said works: Focus on a 1-0 record for the week, respect opponents, and “prepare like crazy.”

“Goal setting? I don’t believe in it. We’re not goal-setting,” a fired-up Franklin went on. “We’re focusing on the task at hand, getting better every day, doing a back handspring out of bed and attacking the day with everything we’ve got. Then, at the end of the day, going back to sleep and doing it again the next day.”

Focus on the things in our locker room, the relationships in our locker room, the game film, the practice film, the things that are correctable.”

Penn State limped out of East Lansing heading back to Beaver Stadium and with three teams that have 4-5 records — Rutgers, Nebraska and Maryland — remaining on its regular season schedule.

Certainly, the noise around the program the last few weeks will be reduced to a whimper down the homestretch, anyway. But while several players agreed with Franklin’s assessment of how focus can waiver, others didn’t see the problem with all that attention.

“We were motivated. We were excited,” senior tight end Mike Gesicki said. “That’s something that you play this kind of game for. That’s what you are part of this team for. That’s why you come to Penn State.

“Look at it: Last week, we lose a game by one point. This week, we lose on a last-second field goal. You make, literally, one play in each of those games, and we’re sitting here at 9-0, and nobody is talking about the noise. It can be a distraction, but I don’t think it was a huge distraction.”