Sunday Column: Forget X’s and O’s … Let’s Talk Jimmy (James) vs. Joe
Wherever his long and eventful coaching career may take him, James Franklin owes Bill O’Brien a debt of gratitude.
Not for deciding on New Year’s Eve 2013 to leave Penn State for the Houston Texans. Not for leaving the program in pretty damn good stead, all things considered, after the punitive measures the NCAA had laid on it 17 months before that.
No, Franklin should thank O’Brien for the simple fact that no one wants to be the guy AFTER The Guy, and that O’Brien’s brief but memorable tenure allowed Franklin to avoid having to directly follow the winningest Division I-A coach of all time.
Even if O’Brien couldn’t quite help him escape the inevitable comparisons to Joe Paterno altogether.
Between Paterno’s unceremonious firing at the hands of the university’s board of trustees and his death from cancer a few months later, it’s hard to a imagine a more depressing end to the man’s illustrious career, regardless of how you felt about him. But the reality is that Paterno wasn’t going to coach forever, even if for a time it might have seemed otherwise. And even some of his most ardent supporters believed that the Nittany Lions were leaving some meat on the metaphorical bone during his final stretch, even after Paterno had righted the ship following the disaster stretch from 2000-04. That the program was in need of a younger, more dynamic, more modern leader who could lift the Nittany Lions out of the good-not-great realm and into the uppermost echelon of college football.
Franklin met those criteria, and many others. But his first eight seasons – a duration that is an eternity by today’s coaching standards and yet represented a mere 17% of Paterno’s tenure – have not moved the needle. At least not in the right direction.
Here’s a low-context, by-the-numbers look at the first eight seasons of Franklin’s career, followed by a matching look at the last eight seasons of Paterno’s. We’ll get to the context a little further down in the column.
Franklin 2014-21
Overall record: 67-34
Big Ten record: 42-28
Conference titles: 1
Bowl record: 3-4
Vs. Ohio State: 1-7
Vs. Michigan: 3-5
Paterno 2004-11
Overall record: 70-27
Big Ten record: 40-21
Conference titles: 2
Bowl record: 4-2
Vs. Ohio State: 3-5
Vs. Michigan: 3-3
Ohio State and Michigan were Penn State’s major conference rivals during the start of the 21st century, and, Legends/Leaders/East/West division alignments be damned, that hasn’t changed in the years since. What has changed – Michigan’s run to the playoff this past season aside – is Ohio State’s level of dominance, not only of the Nittany Lions but the rest of the Big Ten. Arguably, Franklin has pulled Penn State closer to the Buckeyes competitively speaking than it was in many of those final seasons under Paterno but hasn’t been able to close and turn those narrow losses into wins.
Ohio State’s ascension to another level in the conference has been emblematic of the biggest issue dominating (plaguing) college football at the moment – a stunning lack of parity and a widening gap between the haves and the have nots. A grand total of 13 programs have participated in 32 possible playoff spots since the format was switched in 2014, with Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State accounting for 17 of those spots and six of the eight national titles. That means Franklin and the current Lions have been banging their heads against a door that will not be opened but must be kicked down, where Paterno’s last few years were at least slightly more democratic – the eight national championships were won by six different programs.
The transfer portal has changed the game as well, particularly in the last few seasons. Though it’s hard to argue that Franklin hasn’t gained more than he’s lost from the portal, it is worth wondering how Paterno’s reputation might have helped Penn State in this area, and what the old-schooliest of old-school coaches would have thought of it all.
Franklin and Paterno have plenty in common where the basics are concerned. Both men trusted their assistants, valued their loyalty and had long-lasting professional relationships, but both men could at times struggle to delegate. Both saw the job as a responsibility to not only forge strong teams and develop talented players but mold impressionable young men into responsible, worthy members of society with degrees and lofty goals in hand when they left Penn State. Neither was afraid to give thoughtful answers to issues of sport and society. And both, when you come right down to it, were rather conservative in tight spots late in the fourth quarter.
The biggest difference is that Paterno believed that tradition was the way, that the same basic tenements of blocking, tackling, discipline, and making fewer mistakes than the other guy would be enough on the field, and that Penn State’s reputation – and some good old Italian charm – would be enough on the recruiting trail. Even in the later stages of his career, he was proven right more than he was proven wrong.
Franklin has been and, even as he enters his 50s, remains a believer in innovation. He hasn’t shied away from making changes to his playcallers, turning over his roster (how much of that has been forced upon him by the transfer portal and how much is of his own doing isn’t always easy to distinguish), and his desire to keep up with, if not surpass, the Joneses has permeated every other aspect of the program, from facilities to branding to use of analytics. He’s constantly searching for ways to improve, to modify, to tweak, and overlay them onto his own foundational principles.
Ironically, what has held Franklin back was what kept Paterno from closing his career with a few more Big Ten crowns, or even another national title – a lack of consistent or dynamic play from the quarterback spot and the offensive line. There are, too, some natural geographic factors working against Penn State today that were just as true a decade ago; the balance of power in college football is in the south, and that’s not going away anytime soon.
It’s worth noting, though, that Paterno – although putting together three unbeaten or untied seasons in his first eight years as head coach – didn’t put Penn State atop the national summit and win his first title until his 17th season with the program. Franklin will still be under contract in his 17th year thanks to his recent 10-year extension. Maybe he’ll get his first national title before that. Maybe it’ll be at another program. Maybe he’s already reached his ceiling. Until that first title, though, and even after, he will always be compared to Paterno. Even if he wasn’t the guy right after The Guy.
He could do a lot worse as far as standards to chase, even if some might have hoped or thought he would have surpassed them already.
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