The State of College Football, According to Penn State's James Franklin

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. | Penn State football coach James Franklin often describes himself as an old-school soul who still believes in the antiquing notion of the college student-athlete. Yet he's firmly aware of, and a willing participant in, the business model that has been hugely lucrative for high-level coaches like himself.

Which is why, when asked Tuesday about the future of college football, Franklin began with a very clear disclaimer. "First of all, let me say this. I know really nobody wants to hear from college football [coaches] complaining about the current model, because of the money, and I get that." Then Franklin did six thought-provoking minutes on the State of College Football. His core thought?

"The reality is, the college football that we've all known, the college athletics that we've all known, that's not coming back," Franklin said. "You're going to have to embrace all we're in, but that doesn't mean that we can't make it better and can't still get back to something that I think is in the student-athletes' best interests long-term."

Franklin touched on the common themes (coaches leaving college football, NIL, transfers, etc.) during one of his most in-depth discussions of college football, whose recruit-and-develop model the coach has advocated for often. But while noting that some coaches are leaving because of the game's expanding headaches, the issues began from the input side as well. Many coaches pursued the profession because of the escalating paychecks college football has generated over the past decade, Franklin said, which has soured the situation as well.

"The thing that probably concerns me the most is, I worried probably five or more years ago, when the money kept going up, that I think college football started to attract people into the industry for the wrong reasons," Franklin said. "And maybe I'm old-school, but I still truly believe that if you're coaching college football, you should be coaching it because you care about the kids and their total development academically, athletically, socially, spiritually, the whole package. And I think because of the changes, people were getting into college football for things that didn't align with that. So we've been on a slippery slope for a while."

Franklin, who's 52 and entering his 11th season at Penn State, praised the Big Ten and SEC commissioners for joining into a partnership to press these issues. Franklin has said that only conference commissioners can "fix" college athletics, and he repeated the point Tuesday. "I love that the Big Ten and SEC are taking leadership roles, and hopefully we can do what's best for everybody," Franklin said. "We need that right now."

Because, as Franklin said, there's plenty to fix.

"I do think the Big Ten and the SEC commissioners taking a leadership role in this is really important, because it's not headed in a good direction really for anybody," Franklin said. "I don't think it's the right thing for players. ... I think when coaches went too far, and were limiting where players could transfer to, they were abusing that. We went from one extreme to the other. You can't tell me that it's good for student-athletes to transfer three, four times. Every time you transfer, the likelihood of graduating goes down. I don't think that's in anybody's best interest.

"The ability to overcome adversity, I think, in college athletics is really important. I think we've lost some of that [to] the path of least resistance. Obviously, when you get into NIL, that's a factor. And I think what you're seeing is, my biggest concern is you're having people leave college football that would have never left college football, because a lot of the head coaching positions, coordinator positions, assistant coaching positions, it's gotten further and further away from what they signed up for. Everybody knew you had to recruit [players], to coach them, it was a balance between those two. But all these other things are taking you further and further away from coaching and developing kids.

"And development is like a word that isn't even used anymore. It's like I told the players when they showed up on campus and their parents, 'You came here because we want to develop you. But if you decide to jump in the transfer portal a year from now, and you don't give us the time to develop you, you're almost forcing us to go into the transfer portal.' And teams that are heavily transfer portal teams are basically saying we're not going to develop. We're just going to go out and get guys that we know are proven commodities and have them come into campus. And there's a fine line between all that."

"We've been on a slippery slope for a while. The college football that we've all known, that's not coming back."

Penn State's James Franklin on the state of college sports.

Lengthy but well worth hearing his full comments @NittanyInsiders | #NittanyNation | @coachjfranklin pic.twitter.com/ZerZwTmlNF
— Allie Berube (@allieberube) February 13, 2024

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