A year ago, many folks had James Franklin on the hot seat.
Now, CJF has a new contract in part because PSU doesn’t want him leaving after the 2017 season to put out fires at Texas A&M or Notre Dame.
And Penn State is paying dearly — in long-term cold cash — to make sure that doesn’t happen.
After the Nittany Lions’ 11-3 record in 2016, Franklin is, indeed, a hot commodity. Paired with his turnaround at Vanderbilt, Penn State’s success last season has cemented his reputation as a change agent.
That, coupled with a bunch of top recruiting classes, was the crux of Franklin’s leverage point through protracted discussions. Penn State opted not to gamble.
No matter that the Nittany Lions’ first-place finish in the Big Ten in 2016 was the only season in Franklin’s six-year tenure as a head coach that his team placed higher than fourth in its division (albeit, we’re talking the SEC and Big Ten here).
It’s how he’s gone about it at his previous institution and Penn State. He has a proven track record of turning bad situations into good ones. And with a stellar recruiting 2018 class on deck (and ready to sign in December), Penn State’s brass wanted to lock in Franklin. For now. And maybe for a long time.
ARMSTRONG’S STRONG HAND
Franklin’s agent, former NFL star Trace Armstrong, no doubt played the Kevin Sumlin and Brian Kelly cards in negotiations that had a gestation period of nine months. If Franklin entered the 2017 season without a contract extension, it could be Nov. 26 before you know it. Penn State finishes the regular season the previous day at Maryland, and things look promising for the Nittany Lions. They could be 10-2 or so, and Franklin might even be a hotter commodity.
By that point, there could be heat of a different kind in College Station and South Bend. Sumlin’s Texas A&M finishes the regular season on Nov. 25 against LSU, while Kelly’s Fighting Irish complete their regular-season schedule that day as well, against Stanford.
Then, both coaches could be finished.
Sumlin enters his sixth season at Texas A&M, having arrived in 2012, after he led Houston to a 30-14 TicketCity Bowl win over Penn State. He has a 44-21 record, 21-19 in the SEC. The Aggies have collapsed mightily over the final stages of the past three seasons, finishing 3-5, 3-5 and 2-3. One more homestretch like that and Sumlin will be looking for a new home. In May, Texas A&M athletic director Scott Woodard said, ‘Coach knows he has to win and he has to win this year.’
Kelly knows the feeling. The Irish were 4-8 last season, only the fifth time since 1950 that they didn’t win at least five games. Since Notre Dame lost in the 2012 national title game, they’ve gone 31-20, which usually doesn’t cut it in South Bend for long, especially when the head coach is churlish and recently admitted he didn’t give his full attention to the field in 2016.
Not saying either coach will be fired. Or that Franklin would be hired as a successor. But it could happen.
Those two situations, as much as anything, helped create a sense of urgency to get Franklin signed to a longer-term deal before Penn State’s 2017 season — and the weekly mantra of Akron, Akron, Akron, et al et al et al — begins in earnest.
THE BUYOUT
On the short-term, Franklin’s New Deal doesn’t cost Penn State very much.
The reworked contract calls for a 3.4% raise for Franklin over the next 28 months — from $14.55 million to $15.05 million, a paltry $500,000. That includes year-end ‘retention’ bonuses.
On the long-term, though, Penn State is now on the hook for a massive-sized buyout of Franklin’s contract — beginning at $27.7 million after the 2017 season and dwindling down to $6.25 million in the final year — if they fire him without cause over the next five seasons. Cause includes breaking NCAA rules, and other crimes and misdemeanors. Cause is not losing football games.
(The buyout structure is similar to what Urban Meyer has at Ohio State, in a contract also negotiated by Armstrong; Ohio State’s without-cause buyout package to Urban goes from $21.3 million to $15.5 to $10 to $4.9 million, according to his 2015 contract.)
No matter, either way, if you are Franklin and thinking about leaving. It will cost him little to get out of his contract. He must pay Penn State $2 million if he leaves by Dec. 31, 2017. After that, it will cost him just $1 million to go somewhere else (nearly identical to what Bob Shoop’s exit fee was to leave Happy Valley).
Here’s the irony of the whole deal:
FIve times $1 million wouldn’t make a big difference, either. After all, the Houston Texans wrote Penn State a check for $5.8 million in 2014 to cover Bill O’Brien’s buyout fee when he left after the Nittany Lions’ 2013 season.
If Franklin continues his success of 2016 and wants to leave for, say, a five-year, $40 million deal courtesy of the Texas A&M boosters, the buyout is pocket change to all those oil guys in Aggieland. Not saying he will. Just that he could.
And if, for some reason, the Nittany Lions fall back into a 7-6 and 7-6 trap — not saying they will, just that they could — there will be no getting rid of Franklin. At least without Penn State writing him a big, big check. (Likely mitigated a bit by any dollars Franklin would get from a new employer.)
And that, bottom-line, is the essence of James and his Giant Peach of a Deal.
Here’s a further breakdown of the dollars and sense of Franklin’s new contract:
1. THE CONTRACT
Franklin’s original contract ran from Jan. 11, 2014 through Dec. 31, 2019. You can see it here.
His new contract, approved by the Penn State Board of Trustees compensation committee on Friday, runs through Dec. 31, 2022. You can see it here. The deal primarily involved negotiations, initiated near the end of Penn State’s 2016 season, between Armstrong and the Penn State duo of athletic director Sandy Barbour and president Eric Barron.
2. THE AGENT
Armstrong starred collegiately for both Arizona State and Florida (for one season, in 1988, when Penn Stater Galen Hall was the head coach). He was a first-round draft pick of the Chicago Bears and played 15 years in the NFL. As a player, he was president of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA). Before AthletesFirst, he worked for powerhouse CAA. His clients include Meyer, Butch Jones of Tennessee, Tom Herman of Texas, former LSU coach Les Miles and Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy.
3. INCENTIVES
Franklin’s core set of incentives — from $150,000 for winning the Big Ten East division title to $800,000 for winning the national title game — remain the same with the new contract. These incentives include Big Ten coach of the year ($100,000) and national coach of the year ($150,000). In 2016, Franklin got the B10 COY bonus, but not the national COY bonus, since the two national awards he won, from Sporting News and the Football Club of Columbus, were not on the ‘approved’ bonus list.
As was the case with his first contract, Franklin’s new contract caps his incentive payments at a ‘maximum of $1 million per year cumulatively.’
4. RETENTION BONUSES
Franklin will make some hay here if he stays through the end of the 2022 season.
In his original contract, bonuses of $300,000 each were due on Dec. 31, 2014 through Dec. 31, 2018, with a $750,000 bonus due if he were employed by Penn State on Dec. 31, 2019.
Now, under the new pact, this shifts. It stays at $300,000 on Dec. 31, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2020. But if Franklin is at Penn State on Dec. 31, 2021, he’ll get an additional $500,000. And if he is at PSU on Dec. 31, 2022, he gets a cool million dollars.
5. SHORT-TERM PAIN
For the remainder of the 2017 calendar year, Franklin’s base salary ($4.3 million), year-end retention bonus ($300,000) and level of incentives and other bonuses remain the same as the old contract.
For 2018, his base salary — from Penn State, the school’s TV-radio partner (Learfield Sports) and Nike — increases $100,000, from $4.4 million to $4.5 million. His year-end retention bonus, paid if he is employed by Penn State on Dec. 31, remains at $300,000.
After that, the numbers escalate.
6. LONG-TERM GAIN
$37.8 million.
That’s the maximum amount of money Franklin could make between his next paycheck — on Aug. 31, 2017, two days before the season-opener — and the final day of his new contract, which is Dec. 31, 2022.
Franklin will make about $1.4 million in base compensation over the next four months. Then, from 2018-2022, he is guaranteed a base payout of another $27.7 million.
If Franklin stays at Penn State for the duration of the contract, until Dec. 31, 2022, the maximum he could make in year-end retention bonuses is $2.7 million.
Throw in a host of bonuses, from coach of the year to bowl appearances, and he could make another $1 million for each of the next six years (2017-2022) in incentives.
7. THE FRANKLINS
The year-by-year, dollar-by-dollar breakdown:
2017 — $4.6 million; $4.3 million guaranteed, $300,000 retention bonus, plus incentives up to $1 million.
2018 — $4.8 million; $4.5 million guaranteed, $300,000 retention bonus, plus incentives up to $1 million.
2019 — $5.65 million; $5.35 million guaranteed, $300,000 retention bonus, plus incentives up to $1 million.
2020 — $5.95 million; $5.65 million guaranteed, $300,000 retention bonus, plus incentives up to $1 million.
2021 — $6.45 million; $5.95 million guaranteed, $500,000 retention bonus, plus incentives up to $1 million.
2022 — $7.25 million; $6.25 million guaranteed, $1 million retention bonus, plus incentives up to $1 million.
