James Franklin is still well liked; but the honeymoon is over.
To be sure, most fans understand the challenges that lie ahead for the Penn State football program.
They understand why it’s hard to win with a talent-starved team and a struggling offensive line.
You don’t have to be Chip Kelly to grasp the concept that having 20-30 fewer active scholarship players is detrimental to achieving bigger and better things.
But all of that aside, James Franklin still has convincing to do as he embarks on the 2015 Coaches Caravan with stops in Harrisburg and Lancaster on Tuesday.
Because for all of his charm and all of the recruiting buzz, Penn State has won 10 or more games only four times since 1997. That’s not Franklin’s fault, but talk is cheap. Everyone talks, not everyone wins. It’s not that anyone doubts whether Franklin can win, they just want to see it happen.
And so on this edition of Penn State’s coaches caravan it will be a test to see where the fan base is with Franklin. Certainly a room full of donors is a hard place to find overly critical people, but the introductions are over and done with. People want to hear about progress being made.
In a lot of ways Franklin is the first coach maybe ever in the history of the program who has to prove himself. Paterno may have struggled in the early stages of his career, but he never faced the kind of 24/7 pressures that today’s coaches face. Bill O’Brien inherited a team that was ranked in the Top 25 just a year earlier. O’Brien’s football IQ is the last thing anyone questions (beyond Gerald Hodges fielding kickoffs) but that team was equipped to win all on its own. Even if it had lost, nobody would have pointed fingers.
Franklin inherited a team at its lowest point. His chance to make a first impression came at the helm of a team that was likely doomed from the start. As a result, the data points fell across the map — from inexplicable losses to a double overtime defeat to the eventual national champions. That’s a wide range of emotions to analyze.
Franklin will have to walk a fine line in the coming weeks on tour. His needs are still very much the same as they were last year; people in the seats, money and resources and good recruits. It’s a simple formula to say, a harder plan to execute.
But the fan’s needs will change with or without Franklin. Every coach wants to win, recruit and graduate players. It’s not a difficult sell. And so fans will want to know where the team stands today, how John Donovan is progressing with the offense, how Bob Shoop is building another stellar defense. You don’t need to convince them Penn State can be a good program, they already know that.
It is true that the cards are still not yet falling in Franklin’s favor. There is no denying that Penn State’s margin for error is still small and the likelihood of mistakes is not. These are truths that have little to do with the head coach.
This year, the Coaches Caravan has been scaled back with fewer stops than previous years. Fair or not, this coaches caravan will come with a few more microscopes and a few more expectations.
And maybe that’s why with only so many days left in the summer, James Franklin will spend a few more in the office, and a few less traveling through the far corners of the state.
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