Column: Penn State coach James Franklin draws unmistakable contrast to 2020
For Penn State’s James Franklin, the subtext is often as important as what he says.
Thursday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for Big Ten Media Days, the Nittany Lions’ head coach made sure to stress the major themes ahead of the program’s 2021 season.
Running through his coaching staff and its philosophies, the challenge of the season’s first game at Wisconsin, and the highlights of the player personnel throughout the roster, Franklin crescendoed his way to the point.
“There's a lot of excitement in our program. Our leadership is tremendous,” he said, describing the summer as being 'great' for the program. “We're hungry. I would say, obviously, we've got a chip on our shoulder. We've had a lot of success at Penn State and we're excited to get back to that.”
Franklin’s last four words say everything about the contrast he’s trying to draw between the program’s doomed 2020 campaign and the one set to begin in just six weeks against the Badgers.
In short order, the Nittany Lions’ run-up through August and September 2020 into the late-October start of the amended, nine-game campaign, proved to be a polar opposite of Franklin’s optimism on Thursday.
The excitement in the program?
The Nittany Lions appeared to have a complete lack of it last year, the program saddled by severe COVID-19 restrictions made worse by a cascade of bad news. First losing All-American junior linebacker Micah Parsons to opting out with the cancelation of the Big Ten coming season shortly after, it all pre-empted the devastating news of running back Journey Brown’s hypertrophic cardiomyopathy diagnosis that would prematurely end his career.
By the time Penn State’s spirited comeback at Indiana to open the season came undone in the most dramatic way possible, including sophomore running back Noah Cain’s season-ending injury, followed by an Ohio State thrashing and the loss of tight end Pat Freiermuth to injury not much later, any semblance of excitement had transformed into daily dread and joylessness.
Tremendous leadership?
Penn State as a program might have had the best intentions a year ago among its players and coaches, its efforts to mitigate the pandemic creating results that spoke for themselves. But, in regards to football, finding true leadership was as difficult as finding positive results in the wins column.
So toxic was Penn State’s environment that normally soft-spoken receiver Jahan Dotson grabbed the attention of both the public and program when he brought the issue to light after the Nittany Lions’ third-straight loss to open the year.
“I couldn't speak for everyone but I just know.... we're not as one right now. We're not a unit right now,” Dotson said. “There's a lot of different things going on. There are distractions. There are just distractions that we shouldn't be focused on right now. We got to be focused on getting in the win column and nothing else, literally. That's the biggest thing right now, and I feel like we just got to come together as one.”
Hunger, a chip on their shoulder, and success were all elements missing from the equation until the Nittany Lions had bottomed out with a 41-21 loss to Iowa at Beaver Stadium five weeks into the campaign.
But having flipped the narrative, even if on a gradual basis, through wins against Michigan, Rutgers, Michigan State, and Illinois in successive weeks to finish the season, the Nittany Lions set the table for an offseason that has stood in opposition to the disappointment of 2020.
Stressing alignment as critical to the program’s success, Franklin again drew attention to one of the offseason’s biggest storylines. Sometimes described this spring as “accountability” or its lack thereof, the program’s path forward toward a success it had once known and enjoyed has been tied directly with reestablishing the elements that had been lost a year ago.
“I think when you talk about leadership... I think alignment is critical. Whether that is the coaches being aligned with the players and the players being aligned with the coaches, and us all being on the same page, from a leadership perspective and how we do things and how we go about our business,” Franklin said. “I just feel really good about that right now in our senior leaders and our young leaders as well that are growing and developing.
“I think we laid a great foundation over the last eight years and have done some pretty darn good things, and making sure that we get back to those things and everything that we do aligns with winning and championship habits.”
Determined to find themselves back in Indianapolis in December for another shot at a Big Ten Championship, tasted once in 2016 but not again since, it’s a prerequisite Franklin has identified as necessary to achieve those aims.
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