Sunday Column: Franklin, Lions aligned, at long last, with administration, but will ROI follow?

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The non-news news of the week in Penn State football land as we creep toward the (final?) Blue-White Game was James Franklin expressing pleasure that the program now has the “alignment” he’s been asking for his entire Nittany Lion tenure.

It’s non-news because, well, in local circles, Franklin has been saying this for a couple of years now, praising AD Pat Kraft and university president Neeli Bendapudi at several public turns for helping bring about this ever-elusive alignment, the definition of which we’ll get to in a second. For national guys, in this case Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman of On3, hearing this stuff for the first time is worth noting and thus, news.

Because, truly, both outside State College, where Penn State finally inched its way into legitimate playoff contending status last season, and inside of it, where every move and utterance Franklin has made since 2014 is dissected and debated, what alignment means for the coach and the program could be a fairly big deal.

Let’s be clear on what the term “alignment” means in this context, though — resources. Franklin has been asking Penn State to deliver the means to keep his program competitive or better when measured against every other program in terms of facilities, amenities, staffing, conditioning, branding, NIL, and anything else anyone else might be doing. He was careful not to publicly bite the hands that feed his program while still making it known that things were a work in progress and that he wasn’t always, or ever, satisfied with that progress.

The arrivals of Kraft and Bendapudi, though, seem to have changed his tune and there is tangible evidence of why. Beaver Stadium is in the midst of a long-overdue retrofitting. Jim Knowles is crafting defensive schemes while collecting the nation’s heftiest coordinator salary. The Nittany Lions are killing it on the recruiting trail, which could be explained by the staff’s usual aggressive approach or the afterglow of a 13-win season or a reinforced NIL war chest. It’s hard to figure which factors weigh most heavily but that is one of the perks of alignment.

There are essentially two factions of Penn State fans as Franklin enters year 12 in State College. There’s the group that believes he’s done a damn fine job with what he’s had to work with, personnel and resource-wise, not to mention the sanction-crippled state of the program when he took it over, and that if he keeps knocking at the door and/or gets a little more administrative help, elite status and a natty or two are very much in play. The second group, with varying levels of enthusiasm or malice, simply points to his ugly record in big games, and argues that pouring more resources into an ultimately flawed system will only lead to the same disappointing results (though they would love to be proven wrong).

I see both sides of this coin, though my favorite argument from the second group is “He only beats the teams he’s supposed to beat,” as though that were an insult. First of all, that isn’t an easy thing to do in today’s college football, in which any given team’s floor and its ceiling are a lot closer together than before the transfer portal existed. But also, at least theoretically, if Franklin has the alignment and the resources he has always asked for, and the recruiting follows suit, the number of teams Penn State is supposed to beat will only go up, and his record in those big games will have to then improve as well, no? If you believe college football is more about the players you have than the coaches calling the shots, then alignment is perhaps the missing ingredient for Franklin and Penn State. If you believe coaching is not more but maybe just as important, know that the Nittany Lions have never had a more dynamic staff than they currently do, and alignment played no small role in that.

Out-talenting people is a great, and often relatively stress-free, way to win consistently. Out-coaching them can allow you to overcome as-talented or more-talented opponents. The dream, of course, is to have advantages on the field and the sideline when you’re heading into any game. Franklin, whatever flaws he may have, has always known this, and while resources alignment isn’t the be-all end-all, it at least provides program CEOs such as himself with the opportunity to share level ground with the nation’s best off the field which, as both factions of Nittany Lion fans hope, will level that ground between the sidelines.