It’s a brand new Penn State world for James Franklin these days.
And we’re not just talking NIL, the transfer portal, an expanded and renovated Lasch building, and Alston payouts to his players.
Or the departure of his longtime strength and conditioning coach. Or the departure of his longtime defensive coordinator. Or the departure of his longtime right-hand man.
In less than a dozen weeks, Franklin – who is in his ninth year at Penn State – will have a pair of new bosses.
Penn State’s next president, Neeli Bendapudi, officially succeeds Eric Barron on May 9. And Bendapudi, who is leading the search for Penn State’s next athletic director, said she hopes to have Sandy Barbour’s successor in place by July 1.
Barron, Barbour and Franklin were hired within a span of 219 days of each other in 2014, and have been together for over 2,800 days since. Currently, they are the longest-tenured president-AD-head football coach troika in the Big Ten Conference. But not for long.
At the start of spring drills three weeks ago, Franklin addressed the big changes coming at the top of Penn State’s hierarchy.
“You have heard me talk about alignment for a long time,” Franklin said then. “It’s kind of a unique deal when I came in as the football coach, with an interim president (Rod Erickson) and an interim AD (Dave Joyner). Then I was really fortunate because in a short period of time after that, President Barron and Sandy were hired. I thought we worked extremely, extremely well together.”
When all three were hired, Penn State was still under NCAA sanctions. In the eight seasons since, Nittany Lions football has gone 67-34 under Franklin, with a Big Ten title and three appearances in New Year’s 6 bowls.
But that championship was six seasons ago. And the massive momentum has seemingly stalled, with Penn State going 14-13 since November 2019 and 11-11 in the past two seasons with an 8-10 mark in Big Ten play.
The soon-to-be-19th president of Penn State is adept at handling challenging circumstances in intercollegiate athletics, which was certainly the case when she was president at the University Louisville. During her tenure there, she led the school through difficult situations involving football, basketball, naming rights and the AD.
Bendapudi certainly understands the business of college sports, as well as its key role in the image and marketing of a nationally-known university like Penn State. She was dean of the University of Kansas’ business school, as well as a bank EVP in private industry. In addition, with an academic background in the study of consumer behavior in service contexts and having done consulting with clients as varied as Procter & Gamble, the U.S. Army and AIG, she knows all about branding. She knows the Big Ten, too, having taught at Ohio State.
Bendapudi has a five-year contract with Penn State. Franklin’s is double that length. And pays over six times as much per year — $1.3 million vs. $8.5 million annually.
Franklin is a big relationship guy. As such, he said he is looking forward to working with his new bosses.
“Obviously with having two significant positions on a college campus — the president and the athletic director — building those relationships and that rapport is critical as well as the chair of the board in Matt Schuyler,” Franklin said. “All those positions are really important.
“But I’m excited right now in how those things are going. But obviously, this athletic director hire is going to be critical for the university as a whole, for the athletic department, and then specifically to the football program.
“Very, very important hires and very important that we build strong relationships and that I understand so I can do a great job of building the football program in the vision that they expect it to be run.”
IN THE MEETING ROOM
Page 59 of Penn State’s spring football 2022 media guide also underscores Franklin’s challenge in dealing with other new co-workers – those inside of Lasch.
That page features the bios of a new defensive coordinator, Manny Diaz, who was hired 123 days ago. And new special teams coordinator Stacy Collins, who was hired 96 days ago. And still-kinda-new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, who was hired on Jan. 8, 2021, and last season oversaw a struggling Penn State offense that averaged just 22.8 points per Big Ten game.
Overall, only two of the 10 full-time assistants who coached Penn State in the 2019 Cotton Bowl are still at Penn State: cornerback/associate head coach Terry Smith, the lone returning assistant from Franklin’s original 2014 staff, and running back coach Ja’Juan Seider, who arrived at Penn State in 2018 and has had just one 1,000-yard rusher in four seasons (Miles Sanders, 1,274 yards, 2018).
Franklin addressed the three coordinators at the start of spring drills:
“Going into the spring, the biggest adjustment is with Manny Diaz as our defensive coordinator. I think that’s gone extremely well. I think the adjustment has been really good,” Franklin said.
“It’s Year 2 with Coach Yurcich and cleaning up some things that we wish we would have done better last year as well as just take the next step, in general, from an offensive perspective. I know Sean (Clifford) is pretty excited about it.
“On special teams, with Coach Stacy being here and building on what we’ve done in the past, similar philosophy. Very similar to what we did on defense — hired someone with similar philosophy, so that’s gone extremely well, too.”
Since then, Franklin has met with the media twice. And the Penn State head coach has elaborated on the progress of his new defensive coordinator.
“Manny has some wrinkles that will be really good for us, some subtle adjustments I’m excited about,” Franklin said. “But there’s a lot of work to be done. I’ll have a better feel for him in Year 1 and where we’re at about two weeks into (summer) training camp. This spring will be important to lay a foundation, build on it all summer, do a great job with voice-overs and things like that. Then we’ll hopefully come into camp and the first two weeks we’ll be really flying.”
IN THE LOCKER ROOM
The Nittany Lions are a young team. Very young. Of the 94 players on their spring practice roster, only 25 were on that Cotton Bowl roster 23 games ago.
Add in 16 more signing day commitments who will enroll in May and June, and that means just 23% of the players on Penn State’s 110-man roster – not counting incoming preferred walk-ons in the fall – were around when the Nittany Lions last had a double-digit win season.
(In another era, the 1986 Nittany Lions that won the national championship had a roster that featured 48 seniors – and 14 of them in their fifth season. That’s directly from the 1986 PSU media guide.)
In 2022, Penn State’s projected starting offensive line has 34 career starts. Across the commonwealth, Pitt’s starting O-line has over 130. Penn State’s current players have 233 career starts at PSU; by comparison, the 2017 Nittany Lions entered their 11-2 campaign, one in which they were ranked as high as No. 2, with 359 career starts. Experience matters.
Franklin acknowledged that a winning culture needs to be re-established. Winning breeds winning, Franklin said, and the example of what that takes is often best observed and learned when a player is young.
“I do think there are aspects of when you’re winning like we were 10, 11 games every single year, there is some carry-over from that,” Franklin said. “The younger players that maybe didn’t have as significant roles saw the older players and what they were doing, the commitments that they made, how they practice, how they conducted themselves, how you battled, how you believed, how you won those close games.
“There’s definitely carry-over. The same thing when you don’t have success, there’s carry-over from those things as well.”
With everything else on his plate – including the Lasch expansion, which is slated to be completed by the end of July, just in time for summer camp – Franklin is working to uphold that culture as well.
It’s “making sure that we’re identifying the things that were so successful for us for a very, very long period of time and make sure that we are holding that standard and people accountable to that standard, as well,” Franklin said at the kickoff of spring drills. “That’s not only the coaches, that’s also the players. That’s the strength and conditioning staff. All those little wins add up. All those losses add up, as well.
“It’s all of it. But I can guarantee you that it’s all being looked at. It’s all being addressed. That’s as a coaching staff, that’s with myself specifically, and that’s with the players.
“We know what it looks like. We’ve had a model that’s worked for a long time. We’ve got to make sure that we’re holding everybody up to those standards and holding everybody accountable, including myself.”
