When they first came to Happy Valley in January 2014, James Franklin and Trace McSorley thought the same thing:
They could do big things here.
To be honest, they were in a pretty small club.
Flash back 1,721 days ago to Jan. 11, 2014 — the day Franklin was hired: Who really saw this Saturday’s Whiteout coming?
It will be one of the most-hyped games of Penn State’s 132-year, 1,211-game history, delivered with all the GameDay trimmings and the first Top 10 vs. Top 10 Beaver Stadium stand-off in 19 years, featuring teams with the nation’s second- and third-longest current winning streaks (OSU 9, PSU 8).
Who shared that vision, 57 months ago, the idea that Penn State football would be going toe-to-toe with Ohio State so soon after Urban Meyer’s Buckeyes had handed the Nittany Lions their head, hat and heart at The Horseshoe by a score of 63-14 on Oct. 26, 2013?
Not many.
(Although the week before that loss, after downing Michigan in four overtimes, Bill O’Brien — who would coach only five more games at Penn State after returning from Columbus — did tell me that he thought “you could win a national championship here.”)
Nonetheless, that’s what James Franklin was walking into. Flying, actually.
BEING FRANK(LIN) WITH YOU
On Wednesday, I asked Franklin who shared his vision of what Penn State could be — again — when he first came to town, just 11 weeks after that Buckeye blowout.
“I would probably say the people who came with me,” replied Franklin, now 40-17 and into his fifth season at PSU. “Obviously, I didn’t make this decision alone. I made this decision with my family and I also made the decision with my extended family — the coaches.
“We had talked about coming to Penn State as a staff. Penn State was sending a plane and I said send another one. Sixteen people and their families — not immediately, but afterwards — got on those planes and never went back.”
Since then, five of those original coaches have departed. One was fired, another one or two were given a bit of a push, and two left of their own volition.
Offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne, defensive coordinator Brent Pry and associate head coach/Head Wild Dog Sean Spencer — all of whom were with Franklin at Vandy for three years and now five at Penn State — remain. Their continued presence through 7-6 and 7-6 seasons was their biggest vote of confidence in the Franklin, and vice versa.
Same goes for strength guru Dwight Galt and a small cadre of key talented staffers. Franklin’s vision was their vision as well. To the bitter or sweet end.
You can add cornerbacks coach Terry Smith — the only Penn Stater on the staff, who returned in 2014 as well — to the small list. But it is telling that Franklin’s answer focused on those he brought with him.
Only two players on Penn State’s roster on Saturday were also there for Franklin’s first spring practice, on March 17, 2014: tackle Chasz Wright and DeAndre Thompkins. Another seven who have been with Franklin since the 2014 regular season will be in uniform on Saturday: McSorley, Koa Farmer, Amani Oruwariye, Nick Scott, Charlie Shuman, Johnathan Thomas and Kyle Vasey.
Otherwise, it’s been a total makeover.
Gone are four of the six members of the search committee that found, vetted and recommended Franklin: former NCAA faculty rep Linda Caldwell, retired Old Main executive Tom Poole, departed academic integrity officer Julie Del Giorno and departed men’s soccer coach Bob Warming. Of that group, only Wally Richardson, head of the Football Letterman’s Club, and senior athletic director Charmelle Green remain.
Gone are the president (Rod Erickson) and athletic director (Dave Joyner) who hired Franklin.
In their stead are president Eric Barron and athletic director Sandy Barbour, both of whom came to Penn State later in 2014. That trio ranks No. 2 among such Big Ten Conference troikas that have been together the longest — tied with Ohio State’s Meyer, AD Gene Smith and university president Michael Drake, although their collective future was in doubt just a few weeks ago. (The big three at Northwestern have been together for a decade.)
Franklin has also worked hard in wooing the Penn State Board of Trustees, and has had the support of a few other key notables, such as Poole until his recent retirement, and David Gray, senior vice president for finance and business who is an alum with two Penn State degrees.
But, whoever has come or gone, it has been principally Franklin who has seen what Penn State could become again — and quickly. Quicker and bigger than almost anyone imagined. 246 weeks quick, if that’s possible.
“I like where we’re at,” Franklin admitted on Wednesday, “but I’m one of those guys who as soon as we kinda complete a task, I’m on to the next task, which runs people the wrong way sometimes — (like) the staff. (It) rubs the administration the wrong way, because I don’t think we have time to celebrate the victories, because I’m kind of built to move on to the next thing.”
That next thing is Ohio State on Saturday night.
KINDRED SPIRITS: JAMES AND TRACE
McSorley signed on with Penn State not long after Franklin did, following an official weekend visit to Penn State while the ink was still drying on Franklin’s contract.
McSorley had already verbally committed to Franklin and Rahne while they were at Vanderbilt. But a few days in State College with his folks changed McSorley’s mind. Or, actually, reaffirmed it. James Franklin was the head coach for him — be it in Nashville (647 miles from McSorley’s Ashburn, Va., home) or in University Park (a mere 200-mile drive away).
He flipped his commitment from Vandy to PSU, and five seasons and a 26-5 record as a starter later, the indomitable quarterback remains the Penn State player who has known his head coach the longest. And best.
And has stuck with Franklin through thick and thin. (And vice versa.)
“His vision for here was the same that he had for Vanderbilt,” McSorley said on Wednesday. “His mantra, his vision, was that he wanted to make his program the best in the country and push and compete for a conference championship and a national championship.
“That’s one of the reasons I really liked him and wanted him to be my coach when I was in high school — because that is what I envisioned too. I wanted to play for a coach who had those sorts of visions and wanted to build a program up and do it through hard work.”
It’s not mentioned much, and at first it’s hard to conceive. But the modulated McSorley and the fanatical Franklin are kindred spirits.
Fellow quarterbacks. Dual threat ones, at that. Both with a chip. And brimming with an unnatural amount of self-confidence; Trace just hides it better than James.
McSorley is that way after being seen as a DB rather than a QB in college, despite three state titles and a 55-5 record at Briar Woods High school.
And Franklin? Well, because that’s who he is.
Franklin admits: “I got to be reminded of that sometimes to say thank you, to let them know how much we appreciate it…but then” — he circles his hands in hurry-up fashion — “also we gotta get going. I’m constantly thinking of the teams we’re competing against; they’re not waiting for us. They’re still progressing forward, so that’s kind of how my mind works. I want everything fixed — yesterday. I want everything with a real strong foundation and everything growing exponentially. And I’m not really satisfied.”
Franklin paused after that, perhaps reflecting on this public revelation of his normally supremely-guarded private self.
Then, he put a bit of his psychology degree from East Stroudsburg University to work:
“Is that psychosis?” he said to no one in particular. “That’s how I’m built. Even in sports, I wasn’t the most talented guy. But I’ve always been driven.”
Uh, yea-ah…Trace too.
TRACE ELEMENTS
McSorley, a simmering powderkeg who never quite explodes except after a TD, can relate.
This is what McSorley said the last time Ohio State came to Beaver Stadium, on Oct. 22, 2016, when a scoop-and-score by Grant Haley (another Vandy verbal who followed CJF to PSU) gave unranked Penn State an improbable 24-21 victory over the No. 2 Buckeyes:
“When you talk to (Franklin) – throughout recruiting and even now – he’s one of ‘those guys,’” McSorley said. “He has something different about him, is the best way to say it. I’m not sure what it is, but he makes you believe in the process. He makes you believe in what you’re doing. That’s the big reason I was able to follow him. Just like that” – McSorley snapped his fingers – “on the drop of a dime.”
Quarterback and coach have known each for seven years — over 30% of McSorley’s 23-year-old life. To get to where they are now, they have needed each other. And needed to trust each other.
Hack and Donovan have come and gone. Same for JoeMo. Rahne has been a bright and constant thread, recruiting McSorley as a quarterback when everyone else saw him as a safety, and through a two-year stint as his QB coach before Moorhead came to town. And they are back together again.
But Franklin and Trace — an important name to Franklin, indeed; his high-powered agent and consiglieri is Trace Armstrong — are the two with the over-arching vision. They make it go: Franklin off the field, McSorley on it.
As a freshman in 2014, McSorley redshirted and took it all in, watching an offense that struggled to score 268 points in 13 games, intently watching a starting quarterback and a head coach who were constantly at odds. Now, in just four games into 2018, McSorley has directed an offense that has already scored 222 points.
So much has changed since then, but McSorley insisted on Wednesday that his vision of what Penn State — and thus himself — could be never changed. Not even in 2016 after getting blown-out 49-10 by Michigan in The Big House to go 2-2.
It was a time, if you recall, when there were plenty of Penn Staters wondering where the Nittany Lions’ six wins to be bowl-eligible were going to come from.
BUCKING THE ODDS
The upset of Ohio State in 2016 changed all that, McSorley now admits.
“As team, what that game meant to us — it kind of skyrocketed us onto the track we’ve been on the past couple of years,” he said this week. “I think that was the moment where, as a program, we probably grew up and decided we could compete at the top level of college football. When it came to the top level, we’d be in it against them, but we weren’t able to pull ’em off. That was the first real, real big game we were able to pull off. That was a growing moment for our program.”
That was then. Saturday night is now.
“We’re two completely different teams at this point,” McSorley cautioned. “It’s night and day almost from the team we had back then and what they had back then and what we got now. Two different teams showing up this weekend.”
Not many people expected that win then. Or for Penn State to rebound from the scandal like it has now.
OK, maybe Franklin did. Just ask him.
His vision has remained clear, his confidence intact (aided by that JoeMo hire, tbh), all of it equal parts sizzle and steak.
“Overall,” he said the other day, “I think the average football fan out there or the local diehard or the local beat writer — I think most people — would probably say we’re probably ahead of schedule of what they would have initially thought.”
