James

Every goddamned time the chair of the Department of Pigskin opens at an elite football university PSU Professor James Franklin is mentioned as a replacement. A couple of years, maybe three, ago when it looked very likely that Clay Helton would be denied further tenure at USC uber-insightful PennLive columnist David Jones wrote that he thought James would take that job if in fact it became available. It was a reasoned, reasonable column, as Jones' always are, but, and this is critical, it was a projection of how a person similar to James would feel about being in State College, Pennsylvania for the duration or hopping to the glitter and multi-ethnic diversity of La-La-Land. Jones' son-in-law is Black, you see. Without saying directly that his son-in-law didn't feel comfortable in Alabama, Pennsylvania, Jones wrote that he could understand, from his son-in-law, how James might not feel comfortable. In other words: James Franklin never said boo to Jonesy about feeling that way or similarly. In the event the USC position did not open then but is open now and Jones has written a reupping "see prior column."

The undersigned is not Black, has no son- or daughter-in-law who is Black, nor any relative whomsoever who is Black. The undersigned is a Pennsylvanian by birth and rearing who left for good thirty-nine years ago. David Jones worked for five years at the Columbus Dispatch. He has worked in State College continuously since 1990. James Franklin is a Pennsylvanian by birth and rearing. He left Pa. in 1995 (for Denmark) and didn't return until getting his current gig in 2014. His coaching resume reads like the typical professor of pigskin's, James Madison for a year, Washington State for a year, Idaho State for a year. And then in 2000 four years at Maryland; one year with the Green Bay "Packers", one year at Kansas State. And then back to Maryland in 2008 for three years. Three years in Nashville as head man at Vanderbilt and then PSU. This is James Franklin's eighth year in State College.

I don't see in that c.v. a yearning for the bright lights and tinsel town, do you? I don't see a longing for the Big City. I mean, Harrisonburg, Virginia? Pocatello, Idaho? How many blackish people in Pocatello in 1999?  Manhattan, Kansas? College Park, Maryland is a small town of 32,000 but is four miles from the border with Washington, D.C., a sure enough big city with a majority Black population.

Will it be easier to win a conference title at USC than in State College? Yes. Easier to make the College Football Playoff? Probably. Does James mind doing it in relative anonymity? USC is a national school with a national following, just as PSU is. When the "Trojans" are great, you are the toast of the town. Short of that, they play on Beijing Time and play pretty unnoticed by East Coast elites and fans. Locally, if you can speak of Los Angeles as have a locale, if USC isn't great it's, "When does 'Lakers' season start?" In addition though, what is James Franklin's exposure to SoCal? He spent one year in the conference--in Pullman, Washington. David Jones assumes, because his son-in-law is Black, that James Franklin is pulled irresistibly to the most humongous, amorphous polyglot in America. I don't see that pull being present. From his resume, James is an East Coast small-town guy. 

How about Baton Rouge? Not easier to win a conference title in the SEC West with Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss. Texas A&M, and Arkansas, and soon to be coming, Oklahoma and Texas. If race is a critical issue for Franklin, does he really want to move from the state where the Battle of Gettysburg was fought to a slave state in the deepest South? He has worked as far south as Tennessee, a deep south slave state to be sure, but in Nashville, pop. 692,000. Hell, they've even got a hockey team. They've got an NFL team and an MLS soccer team. Nashville ain't Knoxville or Baton Rouge, or Tuscaloosa or Oxford. He worked in Nashville at Vanderbilt, an elite intellectual university. He's going to leave PSU for the Cajin Culture of Loseeana? I would be shocked. I would be shocked if Franklin leaves for LSU and only slightly less shocked if he took the SC job.

On the other hand Franklin has been in State College for eight years. He's only 49 years old. Neither do I see him staying for life like Paterno. A man at 49 cannot make that decision. He doesn't want to grow stale. Surely he has the itch for "the next challenge"--and that window is closing. If he stayed another eight years he'd be 57, really, too old to start over. 

I know where I'd go if it was me, a white Pennsylvania native with no black son-in-law. I'd go to Miami, which is where I did go in 1982. Miami is so far south that it's north. You can hear any accent you want except Southern. There's no weird surfer dude culture, no creepy unreconstructed Reconstruction vibe. James Fucking Franklin would LOVE Miami, and vice versa. UM gives Franklin the "next challenge" if that's his itch. If he would feel more comfortable with people who look like him (and I see no evidence from his present or past that race is at all a factor for him) there are about two and a half million people in Miami-Dade County who look like James Franklin and vice versa. Miami is the most exciting city on earth and the one with the most natural physical beauty. The weather is sublime, the recruiting base "unrivaled"; if he turned UM around once and for all they'd give him a parade. You can hobnob with the rich and famous and beautiful if that's your thing. But, Miami's stadium situation is a disaster. The stadium literally could not be further away from campus and still be in Miami-Dade County. That is significant. The university administration is disengaged. That is significant. UM's inability to pay James competitively probably makes this job a nonstarter.. He's a $9M per year coach. He's making $5.5 at PSU. Manny Diaz is making $3.1. James is not going to take a fucking pay cut now. UM would have to come up with at least 6 mil a year to entice Franklin and I don't think UM can afford that. I read very recently that UM just cannot pay market value to get a top flight professor of pigskin.

I think James Franklin will stay in State College. If he leaves now, the best, by far, fit for him in my judgment is in Miami. If Franklin does want a new job he will have to do it within the next very few years. If I were him (assuming Miami can't pay) I would wait for North Carolina. That job is going to come open soon, the school has got more money than God, is located in a sophisticated small city, has great facilities and a fertile recruiting base. Otherwise, Franklin will be in Alabama, Pennsylvania for the rest of career.