Penn State football coach James Franklin had a speech planned for a victorious postgame press conference after the Nittany Lions played Ohio State. The victory never came.
But, we did get the speech…nine days later. I think. Allow me to explain:
In his weekly press conference in the Beaver Stadium media room on Monday, Franklin answered the usual array of questions about injuries, running backs, injuries to running backs, wide receivers, practice and freshman eligibility red/yellow/green lights.
Then, came my turn. Like I ask of my Penn State students, I sit in the front row at these Monday pressers, next to Blue White Illustrated’s Nate Bauer, a former student, great guy and true insider on the Penn State beat. I had the penultimate question.
On Friday, Penn State’s Board of Trustees approved a new PSU-private partnership plan to build a new student housing complex at the corner of College Avenue and University Drive — near the Penn State football complex, likely not-so-coincidentally. Obviously, it will house some football players, though Penn State says that it is designed for all non-first year students.
THE PRESSER’S PRESSING QUESTION
I’ve been attending these weekly pressers of the Penn State football head coach since 1979. I know the drill. On Monday, I saw the occasion of the new dorm news as a news hook to ask Franklin a wider question than just about the build-up to Purdue. (OK, there is very little build-up to Purdue. They are 1-8, and among their defeats are games with losing margins of 35, 45, 46 and 59 points. The Boilermakers are…ahem…a train wreck.)
In fact, I was hoping to get a broader answer from Franklin about the “Penn State of the Union,” even though he usually eschews such in-season big-picture questions. Purdue was the break I needed. The Nittany Lions, No. 4 in the AP rankings, are off to an 8-1 start for the second consecutive season and are 29-6 over the past three years. That’s similar to the mid-2016 to mid-2018 roll of 24-3 that Penn State experienced under Franklin.
It has the same kind of vibe, especially with the already-realized prospect of making the newly-expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. Save for some poor goal-line play-calling in the fourth quarter against Ohio State — read about it here — the Nittany Lions would likely be No. 2, at worst, in the AP rankings and riding a huge wave. The last time Penn State was No. 1 in the AP rankings? On Oct. 18, 1997, when they beat Minnesota 16-15, but fell to No. 2 afterwards — a whopping 9,886 days ago.
Alas, those Buckeyes. They defeated Penn State (again) and Franklin had to deep-six his intended speech, which he himself revealed that he planned to deliver in his postgame press conference on Nov. 2. (This happened previously, when after a loss Franklin indicated he had a victory speech all ready to go, but had to shred it then as well.)
Back to Monday, just around 1 p.m. I had my fill of the standard questions and answers, and wanted something from Franklin that had some meat on the bones. So, I asked CJF the following. He bit.
A big part of Franklin’s 452-word, three-minute, 29-second answer is props to Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft. For good reason.
Since Kraft arrived on campus — ahead of time of his actual starting date; he couldn’t wait to get started and, as we have learned, that is so on brand for him — Kraft has gotten things done, And done. And done. For football, that means the $700 million Beaver Stadium project, finishing the Lasch overhaul, expanding the analysts staff, greenlighting (instigating?) the firing of offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, giving football its own training table, forcing the merger of two separate and warring NIL collectives, and working to get those new dorms.
WHAT JAMES SAID
Question: “With the training table, the stadium and now the dorms coming in across the street on University Drive — and you’ve worked really hard to make a lot of these things happen — are the big pieces in place? The big picture things that have taken 11 years to happen. Are there any big pieces you’re looking forward to in the years ahead?
Franklin: “Well, what I will say is, No. 1, I’m appreciative of all the work that’s gone in over our 11 years. One of the things I’d like to show you guys at some point is we’ve taken before-and after pictures of everything. I think back all the way to standing on that turf practice field and my back was up against the fence and you guys were asking me questions — a lot of the same people in the room were asking me questions about facilities. And that was a battle when I first got here.
“The turf — we weren’t allowed to use the turf because it hadn’t been replaced in 10 years, our turf field.
“So, I’m very, very proud of the progress we have made. I’m very, very appreciative of the Board [of Trustees] leadership over my 11 years here. I’m very appreciative of the presidents over my 11 years here. I’m very appreciative of the ADs.
“I will say this: In the last, I guess it’s probably been three years, with Neeli [Bendapudi] and Pat [Kraft] and [BOT chair] Matt Schuyler and pretty soon [new BOT chair David] Kleppinger, it has changed. And, again, very appreciative of the support we’ve gotten over 11 years, but I would say in the last three years it’s been different. I would say specifically in the last year-and-a-half, it’s been different because the first year-and-a-half, when you get on campus, you’re just trying to kind of figure it all out. And once they were able to figure it all out, we are getting the type of support at a level that I think this place demands and should have.
“But we are getting the type of support in the last year-and-a-half through those people that we have not had here. So, are there still things that need to be done? Yes. Yes. We’ll be saying that for the rest of our time here because you guys know it’s constantly a moving target. But I think that was the problem, right?
“When you stop trying to get better on a daily and a yearly basis and you’re not bold and aggressive with those things all the time, you can fall behind and you can fall significantly behind.
“So, yeah, there’s still a lot of things that we have to get done. But we are closer…not even close…we are closer than we have been in my 11 years, not even close from a support standpoint and a commitment standpoint.
“And, again, that is a credit to Neeli Bendapudi, Matt Schuyler and clearly Pat Kraft. Clearly Pat Kraft, walk-on linebacker in the Big Ten, who approaches his job like that every single day. And I mean that with total respect.”
