Penn State's James Franklin Sees Potential 'Light' Regarding Propsed Roster Cuts

Franklin chose not to make roster cuts during Penn State's spring football drills. He hopes a judge's order will help keep his roster intact.

Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin prior to the Blue-White spring game at Beaver Stadium. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

The Penn State football team concluded spring practice with 114 players on its roster and 12 more still to enroll, including recent transfer addition Trebor Pena. Because of that, Nittany Lions coach James Franklin might have to remove more than 20 players from his roster by the Aug. 30 opener against Nevada to reach the proposed 105-player limit currently imposed by the House vs. NCAA settlement.

But Franklin is holding out hope that he won't have to make any cuts. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken recently issued an order reinforcing her position that the settlement must permit current athletes to remain on their teams next season.

Because of the uncertainty surrounding roster limits, Franklin made no cuts during Penn State's spring practice. He enters May with some measure of relief that he didn't.

"There's light at the end of the tunnel right now," Franklin said after the Blue-White Game. "The most recent statement, from what I understand, ... is that [Judge Wilken] will not settle the case until the 105 [roster limit for football] is dealt with. And she brought up about grandfathering the current players in the program, which would be phenomenal. I think everybody would love that."

Franklin has spoken critically about the roster-limit proposal since it was included in the House vs. NCAA settlement, which will allow athletic departments to share revenue with athletes. Franklin has said that such limits would impact college football's walk-on programs and other opportunities.

But the NCAA and its member power conferences chose not to amend Wilken's roster-limit proposal after an April hearing. The NCAA defended roster limits in a statement to Sportico.

“Implementing roster limits would vastly increase the scholarship opportunities for thousands of student-athletes, and the NCAA is working through the judge’s order with defendant conferences and plaintiffs to usher in the most significant changes in college sports in decades,” and NCAA spokesperson told Sportico.

Though Franklin said he didn't make any specific cuts, he did outline the program's plan for addressing the proposed 105-player roster limit. Some players chose to transfer because of the pending limit, Franklin said.

"My responsibility is to educate our players on what the process is and then how we're going to handle it at Penn State," Franklin said. "You're allowed to carry a full roster right up to your first game. So that is our plan, to keep everybody on the team as long as we possibly can. And then when the season's over, you're able to get your roster right back up again.

"So we would put those guys back on the roster during spring ball, during fall training camp. They have an opportunity to compete, and everybody knows that. So we've talked about it. We've had some guys go into the portal because of that. But I think everybody else is comfortable with how it would stand based on how we've explained it to everybody."

As a coaching veteran who played Division II football on a Pell Grant and believes in the traditional model of college athletics, Franklin bristles at the changes.

"What we do in the classroom is complimented by what we learn on the fields and the courts," Franklin said. "I'm fighting and scratching and clawing to hold onto what I believe college athletics is all about: having transformational experiences for student-athletes, not transactional. So I'm fighting. And that's why, to me, I wasn't going to cut to the 105 earlier than I had to, with hope that this may happen, like the judge is doing right now.

"But I also felt like I needed to tell [the players] what could be coming if this happened so they have all the information and could make decisions. I don't want to lose any of them. I'd like for these guys to stay a part of the program until they graduate. And a lot of these young men chose Penn State to get their degree from Penn State and play football. I think that's one of the reasons why the judge is deciding this. You're going to have people leave schools because they want both. They want to be able to get their education and play football. And I know the value of a Penn State degree, so I don't like anything about it. But I felt like it was our responsibility to make sure everybody kind of understood, and we explained it in detail. And then at that point, it's fair choice."