Franklin Embraces Challenge From The Unhappy

By Kyle Golik

When I began to do this journalism thing, I remember one of the first times I participated at a press conference I approached my mentor. We discussed various questions, what was good, what was bad. What I remember from that conversation is my mentor saying, “if you ask a great question everyone eats at the buffet.” At Big Ten Media Days, I was the last question for Penn State head coach James Franklin on the main stage, and I gave everyone plates for the buffet.

My question for Franklin was the following:

“You mentioned earlier about Southern Cal, Oregon, UCLA, Washington joining the league. After the 2018 Ohio State game, you had your, what I refer to as the epic good to great to elite rant. So with these teams coming in, where do you feel Penn State stands in the pecking order? And a follow-up, if you don't feel Penn State is quite at elite, what do you think the Nittany Lions have to do to achieve the elite status?”

Franklin began his answer by reprimanding me for calling his “Good to Great to Elite” moment a rant, Franklin said it was a speech. I digress on the classification and will debate it as a fine coaching rant with the best of them.

But it was the answer that followed that filled all the media their plates today:

“You're talking about a program that you can win 10 or 11 games and people are not happy or satisfied. That's inside the Lasch building and that's outside of the Lasch building. We totally get that and embrace that.”

Many in the media took this out of context and ran with the first sentence and completely dropped the last key sentence.

Franklin is correct, it doesn’t matter sometimes what a coach does people won’t like them. I got plenty of friends in Alabama, and during the reign of dominance Nick Saban enjoyed, when they would lose a single game you would hear those folks wanting to terminate Saban.

As I am often reminded by a good friend, “fan is short for fanatic.”

Franklin has made peace through his experience as a head coach that he knows he won’t please everyone. At Penn State, Franklin understands the shadow cast by Joe Paterno and the famed Penn State “Joe-bots” are never pleased with the accomplishments Franklin has.

Many of these Paterno sympathizers fail to realize it took him 17 seasons to get his first national championship, and after the 1994 season, Penn State only went to a New Year’s Six bowl three times in his final 17 seasons.

When you compare what Franklin has accomplished, in the last eight seasons Penn State has gone to five New Year’s Six bowls. The last time Penn State matched that feat was from Paterno’s 1975 to 1982 seasons.

Franklin then approached the heart of my question where he sees the program in the sense of “Good to Great to Elite.”

“For us, we've got to play our best when our best is needed most, in the biggest games, at the biggest moments. I think, if you look at us specifically last year, did some phenomenal things. That's the step that we need to take, and having a returning starting quarterback obviously helps with that,” Franklin replied, “We're a quarterback-driven game, whether it's in the NFL, college, or high school, and having a returning quarterback at that position that did some phenomenal things -- I think he was second in touchdown to interception ratio. I think he broke the national record in completions without an interception. So did some phenomenal things. We've got to build on that.”

While quarterback Drew Allar had the amazing touchdown to interception ratio, in the biggest games Penn State had last season against Ole Miss, Michigan, and Ohio State, all games Penn State lost, Allar had a completion percentage under 50% in each game.

Many of the issues for Allar stemmed from an offense that wasn’t explosive enough, ranking 97th in the nation on plays of 20+ yards of offense.

Franklin concluded his answer by talking about the confidence of the wide receiver room, the main culprit of the lack of explosiveness for Penn State. Franklin throughout his main session lauded Ohio State transfer Julian Fleming , who Franklin feels is the leader and playmaker missing from that room to galvanize the room.

Ultimately, even without the final sentence, the reality is true there are some people who will never be happy with what Franklin achieves. They won’t look at the 10 or 11 wins but think more on the ones Franklin missed.

But it is those big games that mean the most, Franklin has Penn State at the point where if it is a game they should win, they typically do. It is those ranked losses, the painful Ohio State and Michigan losses, that have many other fans scarred. Franklin did recognize it, saying “we need to play our best when it is needed most,” what Franklin has to do to those who are unhappy is get his team to play their best against the best. Get a few wins against Ohio State, Michigan, and in major bowls. Even then there will be still some unhappy, but as many Alabama fans will tell you, you just drown out the ignorant at that point.