Penn State Football: First Chapter In Meyer/Franklin Saga Only The Start Of Bigger Things

The lights of Penn State’s practice field were the only thing illuminating a cold and windy evening outside the Lasch Building.

Head coach James Franklin watched as his team worked on short yardage situations.

Wearing a knitted Penn State hat Franklin dashes from coach to coach, drill to drill, so much so that even with the chill it’s hard to imagine that a man who moves around so much can still be cold.

Only days prior to his first big home game — a potentially lopsided contest against No. 12 Ohio State — Franklin is as optimistic as ever. Even so, for as big as the contest is in terms of what a victory could do for the program, Franklin knows that it takes time to build any kind of meaningful annual rivalry.

“Maybe at some point down the road that will happen,” Franklin said to the idea that Penn State needs a marquee match up each year. “We’ll probably never really approach it that way but maybe from a perception standpoint that’s probably important, but we’ll never approach it that way.

“But I think at some point that time will come where it’s going to be important to take that next step, when that is I’m not sure yet.”

That’s the unspoken reality of James Franklin’s tenure at Penn State. He is coaching a major college football program that is years from being at the level of a true major college football program. It will take time to recover the talent lost and the depth needed to compete at the highest level. It will take even more time to mold that talent into a team that can make a run at conference titles.

How much time that takes is an unknown, but Franklin takes on his appointed recruiting nemesis in Urban Meyer knowing full well that his biggest rival in the conference has a head start that’s measured in years.

It might change down the road, but Franklin isn’t worried about anything other than the Nittany Lions. Even in the middle of a headline weekend for the conference with Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State all playing, Franklin isn’t concerned about the conference.

“I don’t ever, ever worry about the conference. That’s not my job,” Franklin said. “My job is to do everything in my power to make this the best program in the country on the field and off the field in the classroom. By doing that, that will help the conference. None of the decisions we make or the things we do are for the conference, they’re for Penn State and by doing a great job at Penn State that will take care of the conference or that’s at least how we approach it.”

If anything, those comments reveal what ranks highest on Penn State’s current list of concerns. Conference perception does matter, and it will matter to Franklin, but he is far removed from that particular issue right now. 

It’s also a prime example of the distance currently found between Penn State and Ohio State. While Franklin inherits a program looking to rebuild, Meyer is running an Ohio State team with national aspirations. In turn, Meyer used his first Big Ten media day in the conference to “encourage” his fellow coaches to improve their recruiting efforts.

In short Meyer says to a certain extent; “I can’t win national titles if beating you is easy and the conference is bad.”

And Franklin? He spends his time getting people up to speed with his long terms goals. And in short, the basic idea that (in his mind not and not his voice) “I can’t win if I don’t have enough players.”

As a result, Saturday is meaningful to both teams — but for different reasons. Still, the days of figuring out where everyone stands in terms of national relevancy and conference title shots are still far away.

And maybe that’s why Franklin had a skip in his step as he walked off the field for one of the last practices of the week. Nobody expects anything from his team — a good showing, even in a loss is a positive. Franklin has very little to lose in a game result that is already half written in stone.

This game will be a benchmark for the program in the coming years.

But right now it’s just a starting leg in a much longer race. A race that won’t be decided after one night in State College.