For better or worse, Penn State football has always been unique, long headlined by one man who became the connective tissue between generations of fans and players.
Nothing about that is wrong, but nothing about it is normal. For comparison, Ohio State has had more head coaches since 2010 than Penn State has had since 1966. In a universe molded and shaped by change, Penn State had become one of the few remaining beacons of continuity and longevity.
But change is coming again.
It is a matter of public record Penn State President Eric Barron is set to retire in the next year. It, too, is a matter of public record that Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Sandy Barbour’s contract is set to expire in 2022-23. While Barbour has not publicly commented on her future at Penn State, she undoubtedly faces the very real possibility – if not certainty – that Penn State’s new president will tab someone to fill her role, as is often the case during administrative change.
As for James Franklin, his contract is due up in 2025.
“There have been a lot of unusual situations,” Franklin said earlier this week. “The timing of when I came to Penn State. I took the job here not knowing who the president or the AD was going to be.
“They were both interim at the time, which is very unusual. Then obviously when you have a president who is retiring like Eric — it’s actually his birthday today. I sent him a message this morning wishing him happy birthday. Eric has done an unbelievable job. We all came in at a challenging time in Penn State’s history and have worked very well together and have battled together.”
It’s in this where Franklin likely faces his most difficult series of decisions regarding his own future.
In the immediate future it seems almost unthinkable that neither USC or LSU have offered – or will offer – Franklin any kind of term sheets. It also seems unlikely that new agent Jimmy Sexton – perhaps college football’s premier powerbroker – would have signed on with one of the most lucrative coaches in the country in recent months without some sort of new contract in mind, be that elsewhere or once again at Penn State. In either case, the support and infrastructure around Franklin is likely the point of contention rather than his own bottomline.
But Franklin ultimately takes a gamble on his own future if he stays at Penn State relative to the uncertainty of what is to follow. The Nittany Lions have done well under his watch but still find themselves a step or two slower than Ohio State and forever in a battle for second-best alongside Michigan.
Subsequently, a new president and athletic director could see that as a challenge. They could invigorate donors in ways that Barbour has fallen short and bring a new vision to University Park that takes demonstrative steps toward leading edge facilities and salary pool that makes a near annual ritual of demands more of a prioritized shopping list than a hostage situation.
At face value none of these issues appear to be as present at two programs with the will and the means.
That decision is ultimately an existential one in many ways. Penn State has never been, save the past few years, particularly close to the forefront of salary pools or facility investments. And while Barbour has overseen more improvements and salary increases than she gets credit for, the charge of managing over 30 different athletic programs does not always put Franklin’s needs atop the list. If nothing else, Penn State has watched revenues increase but so too has spending. In turn, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Penn State finds itself puling together change, charging media for parking for on-campus events rather than bucking its eternal trend of being above the idea of mass alcohol sales.
And if nothing else, the connective tissue of thought that “we never had to pay this much for winning before” drags Penn State farther behind in a new and expensive arms race world governed by those who may need to be most cajoled into the idea of opening their checkbooks.
So in this moment Penn State and its new administration will ask itself how big of a bill is too big. It too may also have to decide if its prideful status of a self-sustaining athletic department is worth meaningless bragging rights or if a budgeting wall between academics and athletics is a financial pool worth sharing in.
It could also decide that this is good enough. It is just football after all, and being second-best usually means an occasional shot at being first. Despite its best hopes and dreams, Penn State could decide that the price is too steep and that its general ethos – a good research university with good athletics – is more important as long as the nationally relevant seasons are cyclical enough to see coming consistently.
All of those answers could be the determining factor. And unfortunately for Franklin, he will likely have to guess the answers to most of them.
“Yeah, I think obviously you want to have an idea of what the future is going to hold, and I got tremendous faith in our board and our board leader in Matt Schuyler that we’re going to get somebody great,” Franklin, who did not touch on Barbour’s tenure in his answer, said. “Eric is going to be difficult to replace. There is a lot of moving parts, but I got tremendous faith in our leadership on the board. I got tremendous faith in our leadership that’s currently on campus now, too.”
The other side of this coin is Franklin the man, or at least the best guess anyone might have summarizing what bits and pieces there are of him to digest.
Franklin is a relationship person at the core. He values what people think of him, it’s why criticism irks him from time to time. It’s why after eight years of dragging Penn State out of the mud and towards legitimate playoff consideration he finds questions of loyalty somewhat off-putting or that fans might occasionally overlook the progress the program has made – harshly sanctioned inside the past eight years – in favor of the shortcomings still yet to be tackled.
To what degree Franklin is overly sensitive to these things, and how much they should bother him is largely irrelevant in the moment.
Juxtaposed to this is the unfortunate reality that contractual leverage, negotiations and job opportunities are things rarely talked about in public. And so Franklin — who has his hands on all of the program’s outward and inward public relations — is left walking an impossible line between the truth he knows and something that sounds close enough to it to be believable.
“I think I have shown my loyalty to this team, to this program, to this community. I think I’ve been pretty consistent with that,” Franklin said Wednesday night after the practice. “There are times that you’re put in challenging situations, and I just always want to be able, when I say something, it’s done, and it’s in stone. And when you’re talking about the future, that can be challenging at times. I am fiercely loyal to Penn State. I am fiercely loyal, most importantly, to these players and the staff.”
“For me, that’s what it’s all about. It’s about my relationships with these players, and the staff, and the people in that Lasch building, and the people in the community,” Franklin added. “And I think if people really would just take a minute and kind of think about how we’ve conducted ourselves over eight years in the community and everything else, I think our actions have aligned with that every step of the way.”
It’s difficult to truly know what Franklin is thinking because the factors in play are constantly changing. On the surface, Franklin does not seem like someone looking for a reason to leave Penn State but he is unlikely to come across an opportunity like the ones LSU and USC provide again in the immediate future, let alone as a minority coach in a field that rarely hires at equal rates. Subsequently the uncertainty around Penn State’s future might also be its own downfall in a world where Franklin will have to gamble on the next administration sharing his vision.
If he wins that gamble, Penn State could be his last job. If he loses, he might be left thinking “what if?” about two programs where the vision is far clearer.
