STATE COLLEGE – This Penn State football season will be the most anticipated of the last quarter-century.
Nine regulars from last season decided to return for another crack at the Nittany Lions’ first national championship since 1986 instead of turning pro.
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The most sought-after defensive coordinator in the country left nemesis Ohio State to join the Penn State staff.
Three wide receivers arrived from other schools to boost a position of need after the Lions went 13-3 and reached the College Football Playoff semifinals.
No wonder why James Franklin was in a cheerful mood several days ago for a one-on-one interview in his office.
He discussed the two-headed “beast” of NIL and the transfer portal; the Lions’ success at roster retention; critical cooperation he receives from his supervisors; the toll his job has taken on his family; whether or not he’s underappreciated; what it will take for Penn State to win its next national title; and other topics.
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Q: You described the NIL/transfer portal combination as a beast. You’ve said you’ve strived to be transformational and not transactional. Do you feel at times like you’re swimming against the tide?
Franklin: Yeah, I do. The reason I call it a beast is that it’s so different from the college football I grew up with. The other thing is you’re essentially (Philadelphia Eagles general manager) Howie Roseman and (Eagles coach) Nick Sirianni. You’re both. You’re kind of filling both positions. You’re having to navigate all those things. That’s what makes it a beast. I think you are swimming upstream, but I do think there’s still a decent amount of families and kids that are trying to choose a college for the same reasons why student-athletes have been choosing colleges for the last 100 years. I still think there’s a good amount of people out there, but the money can be significant. That’s where it becomes most challenging. These numbers are not insignificant. You have to be consistent. If you’re recruiting a kid and they’re leading with money, as much as you like the kid he’s probably not the right kid for you. The same way with the family. The same thing with us. I have to make sure our entire coaching staff isn’t leading with money because we have to be consistent across the board. We have to make sure we’re getting the right kids and attracting the right kids.
Q: Why do you think your roster retention rate is so high?
Franklin: It’s the consistency through the entire program and throughout the process. It’s how we recruit them. It’s how we treat them once they’re here. I think relationships are more important than they’ve ever been. I think recruiting is more important than it’s ever been. You’re bringing the right kids and families here. We’ve been able to close the (NIL) gap because we were behind. You can’t just ask people to walk away from significant money. You have to be able to be in the ballpark. We’re able to show recruits that they’re important to us in a lot of different ways. We show them the best players in the other programs are leaving. Our best players are coming back. It shows you that we’re going to invest in our own roster rather than in somebody else’s roster.
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Q: It’s rare when you don’t mention the support of your trustees chairman (David Kleppinger), your president (Neeli Bendapudi) and your AD (Pat Kraft). You have said you get more yes answers now than you did under previous administrators. What kept you here during those times?
Franklin: A couple things. No. 1, a lot of people in college football, the minute they get a job they’re looking for the next job. That’s not how I’m wired. I almost didn’t come to Penn State because of leaving Vanderbilt and those kids and those people. We’ve worked so hard to get this program back to where we’re now part of these (championship) conversations. To walk away from it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then there’s (former trustees chairman) Matt Schuyler, who I essentially did my last contract with. Matt kept telling me to be patient, that we’re going to get this thing right, that we’re going to get the alignment right, that we’re going to hire a great president and that we’re going to hire a great AD. In some ways I was a part of those conversations. That was helpful, too. It was probably my trust in Matt and in what we had already built here, the staff, the players, the people, the relationships.
Q: What makes Jim Knowles an effective defensive coordinator? What have you learned about him since he arrived in February?
Franklin: His experience. He’s been a defensive coordinator at Duke, Oklahoma State, Ohio State and other places. I also love that they’re not all Penn States and Ohio States. Being a defensive coordinator at Duke, you learn a lot. Sometimes when I hire people and they’ve only been at the blue bloods, when you’ve always had the best resources and the best players, it’s a very different learning experience and a very different learning curve. He’s also been a head coach before. He’s also from the footprint, from a prominent high school in St. Joe’s Prep. All of those things matter. I’ve learned that he’s a man of few words. He can turn it on, but he’s not a talker. In the building, in staff meetings, he’s a man of few words. He doesn’t talk much and he’s not loud. You have to lean in. When he talks, people listen.
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Q: Why have you been mostly successful in hiring assistant coaches?
Franklin: Because we’re thorough in terms of interviews, in terms of trusting our gut and instincts and then making sure our gut and instincts align with what the data’s saying. More times than not it does. When it doesn’t, it causes you to pause and make sure that your gut and instincts are telling you the right things. Then also knowing enough people who love Penn State and love James Franklin and will tell me the truth. Very rarely am I going to hire somebody who doesn’t have a connection to me or somebody here. That’s really important. If (tight ends coach) Ty Howle recommends somebody, he knows. There’s also the negative to it. If you recommend somebody and they’re a flop, that’s a reflection of you.
Q: With the enormous time demands in this job, how important is it to have an understanding wife and family? How important is finding time for them?
Franklin: It’s a struggle. This is all we know, so we think this is normal. I think that helps a little bit. I also think it helps being in State College, where I can go to see them or they can come to see me in 10 minutes. If we were at Maryland and they wanted to see me, it could be anywhere between 25 minutes and an hour depending on traffic. Creating an environment around here, where our wives and children are always welcome in the building every day, is very, very helpful. But it’s challenging. Growing up as kids in a small college town where your dad is the head football coach and things aren’t always perfect, it’s not easy. Neither one of my daughters goes to public school anymore. For me to sit here and act like it’s all been great, it hasn’t. It’s a personal challenge and it’s a professional challenge every day.
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Q: Do you feel underappreciated by some?
Franklin: I understand the question. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Nobody cares. I chose a place that has really high expectations, where you can win 13 games in a season and a portion of the fan base is hissed off. But I chose that and I signed up for that. The players chose that and they signed up for that. Drew Allar, you signed up for this. You chose this. There are probably 15 other schools in the country that are similar. It’s part of the deal.
Q: What steps need to be taken to win a national championship?
Franklin: It’s continuing to invest and continuing to work with the alignment that we have. It’s everything. I would not have been able to hire (offensive coordinator) Andy Kotelnicki under the old regime. It would not have happened, let alone (hiring) Jim Knowles. I’ve said this before and it hasn’t always been interpreted the right way. When you say the expectation is to win a national championship, then everything has to align with that. You can’t say the expectations are to win a national championship and we’re going to hold you accountable, but then these 15 things don’t align with that. We have to be willing to compete in everything. You can’t pick and choose that we’re going to compete in these things but not in those things. The people we’re competing with don’t do that. We’re competing like that for the first time these last two years.
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Q: You’re about to begin your 12th season here. Did you think you’d be here this long?
Franklin: I guess from my lens, yes, because I view Penn State as this type of job. I had worked my entire career to get to a place like Penn State. But if you’re just talking about the way college football is now, the likelihood of that and the data would have said no based on either the coach leaving or them making the coach leave. For us to be the second-longest tenured staff in the Big Ten and one of the longest in the country, it’s another thing we take pride in. You have the vocal minority, but I also would say there is a significant group of people that are Penn State fans that expect the coach to be here for 50 years. That’s also in Penn State’s DNA. Those people aren’t as vocal. I went to an event (earlier this month) in Philadelphia and was amazed at how many people went out of their way to make sure I knew how much they appreciated the work we’ve done here. People came up and made the comment, “I hope you’re at Penn State for a very, very long time.” That’s good to hear.
