Sunday Column: Franklin Can Earn His Money by Getting a Better Return on the Recruiting Trail

The three most important letters in college athletics right now are NIL. The name, image and likeness game is a sport-within-all-the-sports that is already changing the very nature of amateur athletics and will continue to do so in ways both foreseen and unforeseen.

Another three-letter combination, at least for athletic administrators, that is nearly as important and will remain so is ROI. When it comes to coaches, particularly those in the high-profile and highly profitable sports of football and men’s basketball, getting a good return on investment can be the difference between a healthy athletics program and a perennial zombie.

Penn State made a substantial investment in James Franklin and, in turn, the football program last year, extending the head coach’s contract to one that runs through 2031. What follows is a closer look at what sort of return Franklin is offering on that investment, both in comparison to his peers and relative to the quality of teams with whom he is competing against those peers.

Per figures compiled by USA Today, Franklin’s 2022 compensation was $8.5 million, ranking him eighth among all college football coaches and just between Big Ten rivals Ryan Day of Ohio State ($8.7 million) and Jim Harbaugh of Michigan ($8.1 million). The Nittany Lions currently sit at 11^th in the College Football Playoff Rankings and ninth in the Associated Press poll as they await a Rose Bowl date with Utah (8/7), a game and opponent with the potential to bump Penn State up a few spots in both polls.

You can (ahem) nit pick that slight gap between the compensation and the team ranking—and there is a growing number of Penn State fans who would be more than happy to join you— but if they’re both around the top 10, then Franklin is doing his job. And taking a slightly broader look at those numbers over the last few years challenges some long-held perceptions about Franklin and the way he’s run the program.

Franklin’s proponents see him as a CEO, a modern football coach who understands the power of branding, the importance of fighting to keep pace in the facilities and amenities race and above all, as a strong evaluator of talent among both players and coaches. His detractors have long thought of him as a coach who recruits reasonably well but shows flawed decision-making on Saturdays at best and inadequate game-planning during the week at worst, at least against the big fish on the schedule. The term used-car salesman gets thrown around a lot, although if you think about it, given the challenges of today’s auto industry, there are probably few things more difficult than selling a used car, but I digress.

Let’s start with the recruiting piece. The Nittany Lions checked in at 14^th in the nation in Class of 2023, per the On3 Consensus Rankings, as National Signing Day came and went this week. That brought their average ranking since 2016 to 13^th in the nation—good, but not elite. It must also be noted here that these class rankings don’t take into account the comings and goings of the transfer portal, which has already taken on a major role in determining both the makeup and success of college rosters.

If we look at Penn State’s average finish in the polls dating back to 2016, and—bear with me for just a moment—we throw out the lost .500 seasons of 2020 and 2021, the Nittany Lions’ average finish is 10^th. By that metric, Franklin is out-performing Penn State’s level of recruiting, and just about delivering on that hefty eight-figure, eighth-place salary.

Now, calculating that full finish statistic is tricky, given that the pollsters stop giving a figurative crap once you get past 25. But even putting Penn State among the top 40 teams in the country during 2020-21, the average finish still stays in the top 20. And Franklin has arguably done enough to prove that the Nittany Lions should be at least in the top 25 more seasons than not, with occasional forays into the top 10.

So how can Franklin deliver a greater return on his investment moving forward? He can continue to mine the transfer portal, and instead of picking players from Temple or Western Kentucky, start adding a few disgruntled studs from SEC or ACC country. He can hope that the high school recruiting classes yield a few transcendent players, those of the Saquon Barkley or Micah Parsons (or Nick Singleton?) mold. He can somehow figure out how to avoid mistake-free afternoons when his team takes on the Buckeyes and the Wolverines. All of those would go a long way in building more wins and recruiting successes and fan support and dollars raised.

The most likely route, though, is improved crootin’ across the board.

The Nittany Lions’ current class includes several promising offensive linemen and linebackers, positions that have been lacking program-grown playmakers for this team for several years. Improvements at those two positions, plus more dynamic play from the quarterback spot, would go a long way in raising the overall quality of the team—provided, of course, Penn State is able to continue turning out quality defensive linemen, defensive backs, running backs and pass-catchers.

And that, of course, is the hard part. It can occasionally sound like Franklin is being evasive or banal when he answers a reporter’s question with something along the lines of “We have to get better everywhere,” but that’s how to win at the highest levels, something the Nittany Lions have thus far been unable to do under Franklin at various salary junctures. It’s less about the strength of your strengths than it is about your weaknesses. And while near each of Penn State’s recruiting classes has had top-end talent, they’ve also had weaknesses that revealed themselves at some point down the road.

You can say Franklin and his various coordinators have a history of coming up short against the best teams with play calls in the tightest spots, but in how many of those instances would better execution on the play have led to a different outcome? And would a better player have been the difference in that execution?

This column isn’t about breaking down plays, though, it’s about ROI. And ultimately, Franklin is just as responsible for the results on Signing Day as he is the results on the scoreboard on Saturdays. As has been said here before, he has Penn State in an enviable position—a top 10-15ish program that might only need a spark or break or two to break into that top-5 realm. But he’s done more to get them there on Saturdays than many of his critics would care to admit, and less when it comes to getting the right players on the field than his advocates might have imagined or hoped.