A Little College Football In-between Playoff Games

Sorry for the long delay between posts, real life has gotten in the way of me posting my offseason football thoughts here. Even though it was only Syllabus Week, aka: the spring break of the classes, I have been swamped with both classwork and work for my new internship. Here I was thinking that second semester of senior year was supposed to be easy....


Well, enough about my life struggles, lets move back onto the field for college football news. I guess I chose the right week to take some time away from here, as there was very little news to report this week. In fact, the only real story in the world of college football left me with more questions than answers. The first question:

1) Who the hell is James Franklin?

A face to a name

After the departure of Bill O'Brien, Penn State tapped Franklin to lead a team that is still attempting to rebuild itself in the post-Paterno era. While O'Brien did lead the team to a 15-9 record over his two year span, there are still a good of amount of rebuilding to be done. This is where James Franklin steps in. After stints at Vanderbilt and Maryland, Franklin steps in to lead a Nittany Lions team that is eager to leave the past behind. The only thing is: no one outside of the SEC really knew Franklin's name prior to his nomination, myself included. This lead me to my second question:

2) How is he qualified to lead this Nittany Lions team?

It is interesting to see such a high profile program hire such a seemingly under the radar coach. They must have had a good reason to look his way. After a quick trip to ESPN, I found two good reasons for Franklin's hire. First, he is a proven winner. In his 3 seasons with Vanderbilt, his teams went a combined 24-15. What makes that stat line even more impressive is that these wins came in the powerhouse that is the SEC. An 11-13 conference record sounds less than fabulous, but when you have to play teams like Alabama, LSU, Georgia, and South Carolina every single year, it makes sense that your win percentage may be a bit low. This year, Franklin inherits a team that was 2nd and 3rd in the Big 10 over the past two years respectively, meaning that he now has a chance. In addition to his ability to win, Franklin is a world-class recruiter. As an assistant coach at Maryland, Franklin was given control of the recruiting process for the entire team. He had the ability to get recruits away from the bigger schools in the SEC and bring them to Vandy during his tenure. His strength in getting young men to buy into his style and the program will be of immense value to Penn State, as the program will still be missing some scholarships as part of the NCAA punishments two years ago. Each recruit becomes that much more valuable and Franklin will have his work cut out for him. With two questions down, the only question I have left in regards to this story is:

3) Is Franklin the right fit?

This one is tricky. While Franklin can win and recruits well, he is not without his fair share of controversy. During his time at Vanderbilt, there were some off field  legal issues regarding his players, including to five players being charged with rape last year. While they were dismissed from the team and Franklin was never connected, he was the head coach at the time and has a responsibility to the program to bring in the right kind of people to represent the program and to hold them to a certain standard. This is incredibly important at a school like Penn State, where the program still lives in the shadows of controversy. If Franklin can't control his players, his tenure will be short.

Overall, I don't see Franklin as the future of Penn State. I feel that he will only last three seasons, with at least one major controversy taking place in his time there.

Thanks again for the read. I promise to be better about posting in a more timely manner (aka not a week after the story was first announced). Special shoutout to my new readers from my #SMPASocial class at GWU. Go Colonials!