If I were Penn State president Eric Barron, I would have a very short, simple and one-sided conversation with Nittany Lions head football coach James Franklin at some point this week, and it would go something like this ...
"James, we love a lot of what you have done for our football program, and even though you have had a tough couple of weeks, we think you are still the man for the job. However, you are clearly not irreplaceable and if you want to continue to be the coach at Penn State beyond this season, you need to make it very clear in a very public manner that you have no interest in leaving Penn State, no interest in the USC job and no interest in the LSU or any other job.
"You will also make it clear that you will be the coach at Penn State next season and you will work your tail off to get the program back on track. Anything short of that, you better hope one of those two schools hire you because we are done with your silly attempts to leverage us for a new contract."
And then I would take no questions.
I am on the record of saying that I think James Franklin is a good football coach and he has done a really good job at Penn State. I think he has built a program that is both strong and sustainable. I think he has recruited well, his kids never embarrass the university, they have a chance to play in the NFL and the team seems to play in big games every year (except maybe last year). There is a lot to like about what he has done.
But at this point, he hasn't come close to delivering what you would think he has delivered based on the way he talks, carries himself and conducts business. And most importantly, he hasn't come close to making himself so irreplaceable that he can continue to play this game where he has these vaguely worded, non-denial denials about other jobs in order to gain leverage.
Barron shouldn't be listening to any suggestions that Franklin should be fired, but he certainly shouldn't be listening to any ideas that the university needs to give him what he wants in order to keep him happy. Franklin has a lot to prove, and a good first step for him would be to show he is 100 percent committed to being Penn State's coach.
And it goes way beyond this past weekend's debacle against Illinois, by the way. Every team can have a bad loss or a letdown game. The problem is Franklin talks and acts like he should be treated as an elite coach, and he just hasn't been anywhere close to that.
There is this notion that he somehow stepped into a disaster at Penn State and turned it all around and brought it out of the darkness of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. He didn't. Bill O'Brien is the coach who had to follow Joe Paterno and somehow keep the program from becoming a dumpster fire in the wake of all that went on, and he did just that in going 15-9 and keeping things afloat in two seasons despite recruiting sanctions and everything else.
Franklin did do a good job of getting the program to the cusp of the next level, as he won 11 games in back-to-back years in his third and fourth seasons and even won the Big Ten title in 2016. But this is his eighth season as coach and he has only produced a top-10 team (in the final AP poll) three times.
He has one division title (that led to a Big Ten title) and his record against Ohio State (1-6), Michigan (3-4) and Michigan State (3-4) is a combined 7-14. His record against ranked and top-10 opponents is abysmal as detailed in this article. In case you don't want to take the time to read it, he is 2-9 in games against top-10 opponents (likely to be 2-10 after this weekend in Columbus) and both of those wins came in that magical 2016 season.
He is 65-30 overall and 40-25 in Big Ten games, and those numbers speak to a successful — but certainly not elite — coach, especially when you consider his record in big games and his relative lack of hardware. He is 9-7 in his last 16 games, and if Saturday's Illinois disaster is any indication, Penn State is a threat to get beat in every game left on its schedule.
A lot of schools would love to have a coach with that record, but Penn State isn't a lot of schools, and the question then becomes: Does he win enough for Penn State given all of the resources and advantages the program has?
The answer is probably not, but I don't get the impression the administration up there is that concerned about winning championships as long as the program is winning a lot of games. I've read several articles like one by the excellent PSU reporter Cory Giger about whether or not Franklin is overrated as a coach.
My answer to that is he is not, at least by anyone not named James Franklin. Most people understand he is a good coach who has done a decent enough job, but he isn't an elite coach and he may not ever become one. Penn State should be done catering to him every time his name comes up in another job search until he proves he is an elite coach by winning big games and championships.
