That distraction thing. Again.

So James Franklin thinks his Penn State Nittany Lions, losers now of two in a row, have succumbed to that coaching favorite, the mighty D-word, the D-stroyer of seasons, the D-stabilizer of equilibrium and focus and all that hoo-ha.

We speak, of course, of the dreaded Distractions.

Distractions, Franklin says, are what ultimately tripped up the Nittany Lions in the fourth quarter at Ohio State and in the last second at Michigan State, and he is on the warpath against them. This week, he vows, his players will be turning off their phones. They will be turning off Herbie and Corso on ESPN. They will even be turning off (gasp!) the Big Ten Network -- which will fall as  heresy on the ears of commissioner Jim Delany, whose commitment to squeezing every last penny out his Power 5 cash cow led to the Big Ten Network to begin with, and then to the East Coast markets of Big Ten outliers Maryland and Rutgers.

Not to get distracted by the topic of distractions or anything.

Listen. The Blob has made its position clear on distractions before, which is that they largely are  mythical beasts. They are the invention of coaches desperately seeking reasons for why their kids sometimes show up flat -- or, in this case, not flat, simply not good enough on a particular day to win.

That's what happened to the Nittany Lions the last two weeks, if you strip away all the noise about distractions. They led Ohio State on the road until the final minutes before wearing down in the face of relentless defensive pressure from the Buckeyes' supreme down seven. And they were right there with a 7-2 Michigan State team until the last play of the game, when a field goal beat them as time expired.

This does not sound to me like a team whose heads were filled with the frothy praise of Herbie and Corso. It does not sound to me like a team so obsessed with (as they used to say in the old days) its press clippings it forgot how to block and tackle and throw and catch.

Maybe you can say that about Ohio State, which followed up its big win with a 55-24 laydown at Iowa. But the Nittany Lions lost two roadies to two good teams by a total of four points. Somehow the Blob doubts mooning over their 7-0 start or No. 2 ranking played much of a role in either.

But that's just me.