That's extremely damning. Fine, excuse 2020 as the COVID season. What about this season? They were 5-0 and ranked #4 in the country! They finished 7-6 after going 2-6 in the second half of the season. They had no running game, couldn't kick the football, and Sean Clifford regressed. They didn't have the players! How does that happen with arch-recruiter James Franklin? For 2022 they will have the sixth-best recruiting class coming in. That's a lot of talent and may be the magic elixir. But did Franklin's recruiting classes four and five years ago translate into a 7-6 season in 2021? I don't think so. Franklin has never been a good preparation coach, nor a good in-game coach. And, James Franklin
decompensated before the Michigan game, not knowing where he was or who he was playing next. It was the most alarming thing I had seen in a college professor of pigskin since Woody Hayes punched a Clemson player. I sincerely thought he needed to be forced to step down, or forced to take a leave of absence.
You get the sense that it has all grown stale in State College. Franklin has seemed resigned to me for a few years, resigned that he will never win another B1G title playing in the same division as Michigan and Ohio State. There is some foul air swirling around this program.
