Penn State Football: James Franklin Faces Tough Decision When It Comes To John Donovan

The fact of the matter is nearly everyone who watches Penn State football understands the game less than John Donovan. He has years and years of experience, days and weeks spent watching film. It’s his life.

And so to suggest that a coach ought to be fired implies some sort of equal footing. That you understand the game better than he does and have solutions to fix the issues that the team faces at any given moment.

I don’t.

I don’t know how to fix Penn State’s offense. i don’t know where the line is between a team simply not being good and a team that is underachieving. I don’t know if Penn State is getting the most out of what it has and I don’t know if the offensive line with this collection of players is only ever going to be so good. I have educated guesses, but I don’t know for certain.

So I’m not going to say that I do.

But what I do know is that Penn State and more specifically, James Franklin, has a problem. Slowly but surely the glitz and glamour is wearing off. Slowly but surely fans are less and less interested in the allegedly bright future and more interested in seeing things headed that direction. Franklin isn’t losing the fan base but he’s learning that he can’t take them for granted.

The media, myself included, has subtly beaten around this bush for a while now. But at some point implying things is just an excuse to not commit to saying what you really mean. So I’ll say it.

Penn State should fire John Donovan.

Half of the reason is his performance. Whatever hurdles Penn State has to overcome, the Nittany Lions simply look bad making the attempt to overcome them. There is a very reasonable argument to be made that this year and last were going to be the rock bottom during the sanction era. So to simply blame everything on Donovan would be shortsighted.

But again, Penn State just looks bad. It doesn’t really matter if I know exactly why or have an alternative option to fix that issue, but I don’t need to watch hours of film to know what I’m looking at. There are over 100 teams at the Division I level right now and most of them are capable of functioning on both sides of the ball. Some days it’s hard to know if that’s true for Penn State.

If Penn State had been a team that was getting better and losing games that felt more competitive, that would have been one thing. There’s nothing wrong about losing to teams while you’re rebuilding. There’s nothing wrong about getting beaten by teams that are simply better.

Even James Franklin’s record against ranked teams is an interesting stat but not terribly meaningful. It’s when the dysfunction appears at every turn that you raise and eyebrow and wonder what is wrong. Penn State doesn’t look better and in some respects looks worse than the year prior and only measurably improved from the start of the season. “You can see it on the film” only gets you so far for so long.

And that leads us to the other half of the equation. I could be completely wrong.

James Franklin and John Donovan could have a great grasp on all of these issues and a solution to fix the problem in the coming years. There truly is only so much they can do and maybe right now they’re doing all of those things.

But maybe that doesn’t matter.

That’s the problem with being a CEO, you get the credit for the good and the blame for the bad. Franklin himself sits in an odd place, Penn State fans loved Joe Paterno more than Penn State football and they love Penn State football more than they like James Franklin. It’s not his fault, but he has very little goodwill to work with.

Franklin’s greatest strength, recruiting, is only appreciated by a niche section of the fan base and largely ignored by the majority. That leaves fans in some cases paying thousands of dollars to come support a team run by a coach they feel is too expensive for a largely “some day down the road” rhetoric that is often hard to grasp. It may not be entirely fair, but perception is reality. 

In turn there are two choices that will set the course for the future of the James Franklin era. Who his next quarterback is and what he does with John Donovan.

Realistically he’s running out of time to make those calls. Penn State’s 2016 season is a minefield of miss opportunities, a road game at Pitt, hosting three Top 15 teams as well as Temple and Maryland. If the Nittany Lions march out with even a marginally improved offense that might not be enough to make Year 3 the step towards something bigger and better.

Franklin’s hands are tied with his quarterback options and fans will have more patience with that position. But for Donovan the book is open and Penn State has proven that so too is the checkbook. Imagine a world where someone comes calling for Bob Shoop and Penn State is left with uncertainty at the defensive coordinator position and underwhelming results on offense. It’s not a pretty sight.

So James Franklin has to let John Donovan go. Penn State is facing a fork in the road and very little room for a u-turn. Even if the move doesn’t yield immediate results it’s time purchased to continue to build. Talent will get to State College, but that’s only half the battle.

Only time will tell what happens next. I don’t get paid to make decisions, just second guess them.