James Franklin springs hope eternal. Gushes it, in fact.
And why not? It’s largely past Penn State football savings time.
The men of that hour were named O’Brien, Mauti, Zordich, McGloin and Hackenberg. They kept Nittany Lion football from getting clocked.
Actually, you can also add Franklin to that list.
As he starts his 62nd week on the job — which can’t help but bring to mind that Joe Paterno was at PSU for 62 years — Penn State’s second-year head coach has the Nittany Lions springing forward.
That’s on and off the field – and at times, the latter is tougher than the former. That’s why the smooth-headed Franklin sees his Barbour almost daily.
Either way, his week marks another big step in the right direction.
A BUSY WEEK
On Monday, Penn State’s players return to classes from spring break, their academic year now three-quarters over. Christian Hackenberg is, in essence, a junior. Mainstays like Jordan Lucas and Trevor Williams are true seniors. And the Haleys, Allens and Gesickis of the Penn State World are now veterans.
Tuesday, Franklin meets the press to map his #Awesome plans for the spring heading into the April 18 Blue-White Game and its 4 p.m. kick. Wednesday, it’s Pro Day, when the NFL bird dogs make their annual pilgrimage to Holuba Hall to test and time the recently-departed crop of Penn State football players and assess their readiness for professional football.
On Friday, hundreds of high school football coaches will flock to the University Park campus for two days of chalk talking, practice watching, position coach listening and Holuba Hall socializing. (Registration fee: $20. Rubbing elbows with The Pennsylvania Boy With A Penn State Heart: Priceless.)
It’s that kind of week. The same, calendar-wise at least, as it was under Paterno and Bill O’Brien. The annually recurring week of practice, pros and prep coaches is on par with what happens this Thursday at the San Juan Capistrano, when the swallows return. They’re all on a mission.
As is Franklin.
Paterno began his last set of spring drills on March 19, 2011, coming off a 7-6 record. This Friday is March 20, four years and one day later. Penn State begins spring drills coming off a 7-6 record in Franklin’s first season. The circumstances were wildly different.
Only six players on Franklin’s 2015 squad remain from Paterno’s 2011 squad – Kyle Carter, Ben Kline, Angelo Mangiro, Carl Nassib, Matt Zanellato and Anthony Zettel. And they have most certainly seen, and experienced, it all.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Franklin’s group that begins drills on Friday is a different team, of a different program, at a different Penn State. Compared to just a year ago, it will be a different kind of spring for Penn State’s kiddie korps of players. Many went through spring practice in 2014 and then an entire regular season under Franklin. They now know him, his staff, their schemes, terminology, practice and position room preferences, and Franklin’s coaching and life philosophies — and foibles.
It was a learning curve for the players. It was not, however, for the Vander’s-bilt and now-Penn State’s-next assistant coaches, Dwight Galt’s conditioning cabal and Franklin’s crack administrative staff. Except for cornerback coach Terry Smith, nearly a dozen-and-a-half of them had been with Franklin in Nashville at some point.
On the field, spring drills will still be different, if only in numbers. And because of numbers. It will take another year or two for the effects of the NCAA sanctions to not be felt on the playing and practice fields.
Franklin enters his second season at Penn State and fifth overall as a head coach (with a tidy 31-21 record and three consecutive winning seasons) with more depth. The back-up players are more than likely to be scholarship players. That means the No. 2’s (second-stringers) who get reps in practice are more likely to actually see game time. And the No. 1’s will get more rest. Practice will be more valuable, of a higher quality, start to finish.
Case in point: The offensive line. Another case: The wide receivers are still young and their patterns restless. When Geno Lewis turns 22 next month, he’ll be two years older than DaeSean Hamilton and Gregg Garrity, and three years older than DeAndre Thompkins, Chris Godwin and Gesicki.
MINDING YOUR X’s, Y’s AND Z’s
That youth needs to be served — a lot of passes. Hackenberg and Trace McSorley are the guys to do it. In practice. Again and again. Instead of learning the basics of James 101: The Franklin Offense, they all are advancing – and must pass – Effective Passing 400. That means more repetitions. That means more repetitions.
The advancement also requires exact route running and an occasional quicker release by Hackenberg, who has to have more reason to be confident that his X, Z and and F receivers are A-OK. Other than Hamilton, no one in that group really engendered that kind of trust – especially when Hack often was just trying avoid a sack.
Under Franklin, there is gradually getting to be some strength in numbers. Forty-nine players just finished their first offseason of conditioning under Galt. Franklin has signed over 50 recruits in 13 months. He has four verbals for 2016 and, according to Ryan Snyder of Blue White Illustrated, an additional 27 offers to football players who are still six months away from starting their junior year – of high school.
(Context: Snyder, a savvy recruiting expert with analytical chops, reports there are about 400 Division I offers out there to high school sophomores, from a couple dozen schools. PSU’s 27 offers are 14.8% of that mix. Franklin, we know, wants to win at everything.)
In 2011, Paterno didn’t do a single off-campus banquet or an alumni function. He was dedicated to getting in shape, with a goal of running through the south end zone tunnel on opening day against Indiana State. That January, he had told the Penn State brass the 2011 season was going to be his last, and he had campaigned for Urban Meyer to be his successor.
But all those plans went awry. Paterno was injured in summer practice when Devon Smith crashed into him. Paterno coached the opener from the press box, as well as several others as Penn State started 8-1 before the whole season – and much more — came crashing down as well.
GIVING VOICE TO A VISION
This week, Franklin begins his second spring season as Penn State’s head coach at age 43 – nearly half of the 84 years of Paterno when he started his 46th. That was then. This is now. Once again, sooner than many thought, the future is now for Penn State football.
Franklin, for one and yearning to be No. 1, couldn’t be happier.
His voice was recently featured on a Big Ten Network commercial that promoted the start of its “Champions Are Made In The Spring” football coverage. The 31-second spot doesn’t show or credit the Penn State coach, but the pep talk is undeniably Franklin’s. (Watch it here.)
The sound byte, cut from a Penn State team session last season, begins at the 12-second mark, and goes as follows:
“Take all that energy, take all that preparation. Play for the players in this room and play for that person. And then will … this … to happen.”
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