PHILADELPHIA – As James Franklin sat in his chair underneath a fancy looking chandelier in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday morning it was perhaps the classiest looking scene of the Coaches Caravan so far.
While the light fixture was hanging much too high to inspect, further investigation would have likely shown that it was not cut from the finest glass money could buy.
But it looked nice.
And for Penn State football things are looking nice, but far from perfect. That’s something Franklin has quietly alluded to each time he acknowledges the program is still rebuilding.
Off the top of his head, Franklin believes Penn State will have 81 players on scholarship this season. That number falls just four shy of the NCAA maximum allowed. It’s far more than Penn State has had in recent years. But when you subtract redshirt players, injuries and Nittany Lions who simply won’t play and the number goes down even farther. That can be said for any team in college football.
But for Penn State the challenges are a little different. It is one thing to have a player on scholarship, it’s something else to have scholarship athletes on a scholarship. To populate a roster with talent takes time. Scholarships are not automatically a sign of talent, it’s a sign of financial aid.
“When people ask me how long is it going to take to start to get back to the beginning of being healthy, i said three years,” Franklin said Tuesday. “And that’s kind of what I’m talking about, most programs have been recruiting, the programs I think we’re in competition with, they have been recruiting like we recruited last year for five years. So they have a roster full of those guys.”
That’s the key point. Penn State’s Top 15 nationally recognized recruiting class was something of an outlier for a program that has recruited surprisingly below its potential for years. Meanwhile, the rich have only gotten richer. Alabama is elite not only because of the players on its first team offense, but because when someone is injured the second team player is maybe only a small drop in talent.
Right now Penn State is growing depth as it pertains to physical bodies on the roster. The new goal is to add depth across the roster in talent as well.
“When you get to where you want to be, you have your starters that you feel really confident that are good players, backed up by guys where there is not a significant drop off,” Franklin added. “And those guys are competing and literally pushing those starters every single day that makes them better and makes your team better, no doubt about it.
“Then you want to get to the point where your threes are on the scout team and your first team is going against them every single day. A scout team that is scholarship players across the board that if you don’t bring your A-game every single day that scout team is going to get after to you.”
It’s hard to know for sure how long that will take, or if it will be required for Penn State to start winning again. Everyone wants to have a talent-rich team, but plenty of teams succeed without one.
You won’t be surprised to hear that Franklin doesn’t want to be like everyone else.
“I remember talking to Wally (Richardson) and Terry (Smith) and them saying that when they were here there was a large number of NFL players on the scout team. That’s what you want to get.” Franklin said looking out across the room.
Franklin may have never noticed the chandeliers as he left the room, but if anyone knows the difference between looking good and actually being good, it’s him.
