Penn State Football: Nittany Lions Staff Still Getting Acquainted, Just from a Distance

‘I’m a micromanager, I’m going to have my hands over everything in the program because ultimately I’m responsible, but once my people show me that they can do their job, I’m stepping away.’ -James Franklin, this January at the AFCA convention.

This spring has posed an interesting challenge for James Franklin and a staff that includes four new assistant coaches. There are the obvious hurdles like holding practice, something that simply hasn’t happened, but there’s also a less tangible obstacle when it comes to a quarantined lifestyle.

Getting to know each other.

Because as much as everyone talks about a team’s chemistry, there is also the chemistry of the staff to consider. From Franklin’s perspective is has almost certainly been a change in his own life, going from a staff of coaches he had known for years to slowly being outnumbered by new faces instead of old.

Ultimately Franklin didn’t hire a handful of new assistants that he doesn’t believe in, but there is an element lost when meetings are done over a computer screen rather than an office, something that can only be made up for down the road.

‘[The challenges] are magnified with coaching turnover and changes to position coaches,” Franklin said earlier this spring. “We’ve done a lot of things remotely, but face-to-face time is important.”

In the long run Franklin’s relationship with new offensive coordinator Kirk Cirarrocca will be the most interesting to watch from a distance. This is not unique to either of them, the dynamic between a head coach and a play-caller is one long overanalyzed and scrutinized relationships on a coaching staff.

Cirarrocca’s resume speaks for itself, and Franklin’s glowing praise while Cirarrocca was still at Minnesota leaves little room for one to assume Franklin doubts his new hire’s credentials. All the same it’s a learning curve when you’re all on the same team working from the same offices.

‘We had some time together to get to know each other a little bit,’ Cirarrocca said this week of life before quarantine. ‘And to feel comfortable enough with each other to say what’s on our mind. [Franklin] has a culture here where you know people are going to speak up and he wants everybody’s opinion so once you come in here you’re immediately comfortable with giving your opinion in speaking your mind he, that’s what he wants.’

‘Usually when you go somewhere new there’s an adjustment period where guys aren’t really comfortable given their feelings or how they really feel about something. There’s usually two schools of thought: there’s one where everybody is trying to tell you exactly what they think you want to hear, or people are being like: if I said something was red they’re gonna say it’s blue,but that wasn’t that’s not the case at Penn State, everybody’s on the same page.’

When it’s all said and done a few weeks or months of coaches meeting online instead of in person won’t be the difference in Penn State’s upcoming season [if it happens at all] but it’s just another dynamic out of the ordinary in an out of the ordinary time.