James Franklin: Make the Playoff 'as Big as Possible'
Penn State coach James Franklin remembers two-a-day, and even three-a-day, bowl practices. He marvels that Penn State used to spend two weeks at a bowl site. And when Maryland played in the 2002 Orange Bowl, Franklin remembers landing in Miami and going straight to practice.
Those days are ending. As the College Football Playoff navigates expansion, Franklin wonders about the impact on bowl season. So he offered a suggestion.
"In my mind, make [the playoff] as big as possible," Franklin said recently. "Once we expand the playoffs, in my opinion, we're going to continue to deemphasize those other bowl games. To me, if we're going to expand the playoffs, we should expand it as big as we possibly can to allow more teams the opportunity to play for the title, but also to be able to protect those bowl games by including them in that process as much as possible."
Penn State fell to Arkansas 24-10 in the Jan. 1 Outback Bowl without six starters (five on defense) who opted out of the game. Four Ohio State Buckeyes opted out of the Rose Bowl, and the Peach Bowl lost considerable star power when two Heisman Trophy finalists, Pitt's Kenny Pickett and Michigan State's Kenneth Walker, decided to forgo the game.
"Every time I turn on my phone, there is someone opting out from what we would all consider — people that have been watching college football and loving college football for a long time big time — significant bowl games," Franklin said before the Outback Bowl.
As a result, Franklin said that expanding the playoff might protect some bowl games. But elsewhere, fans could look at bowl games as a chance to see their team's top young players.
In that sense, bowls could be considered as the first game of the following season.
"It's the end of the season and still an opportunity for us to go out and play the way we want to play," Franklin said. "And it's still an opportunity for players to show on a national stage what they're capable of doing, not only for Penn State but also for their futures. And also some young players getting some opportunities, more significant opportunities to give them some momentum going into the offseason.
"It's funny," Franklin added. "I was talking to [safeties coach] Anthony Poindexter the other day, and a bunch of other coaches, about what bowl season used to be like. It was two-a-days. I remember being at Maryland with Ralph [Friedgen] and playing in the Orange Bowl and we did two-a-days. Landed the plane and went right to the field. We didn't even go to the hotel.
"Then I was talking to [cornerbacks coach] Terry Smith, and they were talking in the old days at Penn State they would go for two weeks. Go a week somewhere and practice and then do a week at the bowl site specifically to that game, and it was the same thing. It was two-a-days for that first week, and then get to more bowl prep the second week. So if you look at how bowls have changed over the last however many years, it's dramatic."
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