Roster management may turn out to be James Franklin’s toughest job this season, especially in an era of NIL, the transfer portal and participation trophies — and with a roster filled with uber-talented freshmen.
He said so on Saturday, after his team defeated Ohio 46-10 in Beaver Stadium while deploying 74 different players.
“That’s the balancing act of being able to manage all of that, whether it’s by position, or whether that’s the team, Franklin said. “That’s one of the jobs of the head football coach, right? It’s to manage all of the personalities and egos that we have. And that is players as well as staff. It is not always a fun job, but it’s a big part of what we do and how we do it.”
Franklin is ideally – and, in some ways, uniquely — suited to handle such challenges.
A former college football starting quarterback himself, he has a bachelor’s degree in psychology (East Stroudsburg, 1995), a master’s degree in educational leadership (Washington State, 1999) and the lifetime equivalent of a doctorate (10 coaching stops, 28 years as a coach, a dozen as a head coach, 1995-2022).
Managing playing time and keeping players — and assistant coaches; interesting aside there by CJF — happy is a very personal, and personnel, problem. More than ever, being especially savvy with the deployment of the Jimmys and Joes is more important than the Xs and Os.
GOING DEEP
It is also a challenge that can be measured quantitatively. Take the 2022 Nittany Lions.
Penn State had 17 different receivers catch a pass on Saturday. Seventeen. That’s out of 42 pass attempts by PSU quarterbacks. Contrast that to Penn State’s desultory 2020 pandemic season — which seems eons ago — when in five of the Nittany Lions’ nine games only five different receivers caught a pass. It’s easy to keep the WR and TE rooms happy when there’s enough to go around for everyone.
At running back, Nicholas Singleton had just 10 carries against Ohio. But wow, did he make the most of them, with TD runs of 70 and 44 yards, and another burst for 48 yards. Fellow freshman Kaytron Allen had six rushes, while vet Keyvone Lee had just one carry. (Even back-up Tank Smith got two carries.) Utilityman Devyn Ford didn’t have a carry, but he made two catches and earned the post-game praise of Franklin: “Devyn has been phenomenal in the things that we’ve asked him to do.”
Then there’s quarterback. Sean Clifford started his 35th game at Penn State against Ohio, and ran and passed for touchdowns, giving him a total of seven such scores in 2022. He is now No. 4 all-time for starts among Penn State QBs, trailing only Christian Hackenberg (38) and co-leaders Trace McSorley and Tony Sacca, both with 40.
But, after freshman Drew Allar’s second consecutive week spent looking every bit like the five-star QB he is— 6 of 8 for 88 yards and two TDs — there is a ton of social media chatter that Drew is drawing closer to the starting job. (The only chatter that matters is in Lasch.) Then there’s former back-up Christian Veilleux, who was 6 of 7 passing on Saturday. Makes for a dynamic QB room, to be sure.
Penn State assistant coach Terry Smith says he has five NFL quality players in his cornerbacks room — and that’s not counting freshmen. Then there’s defensive end. Brand new transfer Chop Robinson has already emerged a star at the edge even though four-year veteran Nick Tarburton got the start on Saturday. Smith Vilbert, who set a Penn State bowl record with three sacks against Arkansas, has yet to play in 2022.
Franklin in the offseason promised a deeper roster come September. Two games in, he’s made good on that vow, and not just at the offensive skill positions. Twenty-one players have made their collegiate debut this season — 12 on Saturday. And 13 true freshmen have already played in ’22.
THE QUESTION
So, in all of these situations and more: Who plays, and plays quality minutes, on such a roster? Questions like this are why Franklin gets the big bucks at the 24/7 rate of nearly $1,000 an hour, in games and out.
Here’s his broad, political yet true answer for a team whose home base is the Big Ten East:
“We need them all,” the head coach said on Saturday. “We’re going to need every player on our roster. We’re going to need every player in that locker room. Like I talk about all the time: all of their roles are critical for our success. Some guys’ roles are going to increase as the year goes on. Some guys’ roles are going to decrease as the years go on. Some guys are going to kind of stay the same… I will continue to emphasize that everybody’s role is critical.”
The short, yet real and honest answer:
“Ultimately,” Franklin concluded, and rightly so, “we have to do what’s best for the team.”
FEELINGS
What does it feel like to be on the receiving end of such a message, when it is delivered in action, in games, vs. via words shared in offseason meetings? Here’s a bit of perspective from Lee:
Lee had just one reception and one carry on Saturday among Penn State’s 76 offensive plays vs. Ohio. The catch came on the sixth play, for eight yards, while the run was on the eighth play, for zero yards.
Watching Singleton soar had to be challenging in some ways for Lee.
Since he ran for 134 yards as a freshman vs. Michigan in 2020, Lee had been Penn State’s leading rusher at running back for 11 of the 16 games heading into the 2022 season-opener, and Penn State’s leading rusher among running backs for carries and yardage in both 2020 (89-438) and 2021 (108-530).
Those numbers, plus the impending arrival of Singleton and Allen, led one-time feature back Noah Cain to transfer to LSU in January. (Two games into the 2022 season, Cain is No. 3 among LSU rushers, with 17 carries for 76 yards and two TDs. Jayden Daniels leads the Tigers, with 19 carries for 159 yards, followed by Armoni Goodwin, with 17 carries for 108 yards. Cain also has one reception for LSU, which is 1-1.)
For Penn State, it was Lee who made the game-winning TD catch in the final seconds last week at Purdue. But, against the Boilermakers he shared the carries almost equally with upstarts Singleton and Allen. Lee admitted after that game it wasn’t going so well.
“It’s an amazing feeling (scoring the TD), especially when things didn’t go my way at first and I was kind of getting down,” Lee said. “Then that opportunity, that moment, came. And it just changed my whole perspective.”
That perspective?
“Just stay the course,” Lee replied. “Have the faith. Never lose the faith. That’s the main message.”
