I’m going to remain positive after Penn State’s 28-16 loss
to Michigan on Saturday. If you’re not one of those people, one of those
optimistic people like myself, this probably isn’t what you’ll want to read.
When the sanctions were handed down and they mentioned the
loss of scholarships, anyone who knows football knew that those were the most
devastating out of all the sanctions. People who don’t know football fail to
realize what the impact of those lost scholarships meant; it meant that we
couldn’t bring in full recruiting classes, which meant we couldn’t recruit the
players that we needed to fill spots left vacant by players who transferred,
graduated, or left early. Which, at the end of the day, meant we had to play
guys in positions they had never played before or play guys that weren’t ready
for the college game. If you can’t do the math that adds up to playing freshman
and sophomores against juniors and seniors, and in the Big Ten Conference,
that’s less than ideal.
When Bill O’Brien took the job at Penn State in January of
2012 not too many people knew who O’Brien was, they just knew he had a blowup on the sidelines with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady when OB
was with the Patriots. A month after he stood at the podium and was named Penn
State’s 15th head coach, he got perhaps the biggest commitment in
Penn State history aside from Derrick Williams in 2005, quarterback Christian
Hackenberg. When you watched the tape of Hackenberg in high school you saw why
NFL scouts were already drooling over this baby-faced 17-year old, 6 foot 4
quarterback. He could make every throw, he was a big kid, and he was the mold
of a Tom Brady-like quarterback, which made him and O’Brien the ideal
combination. The dream of having both O’Brien and Hackenberg around for the
duration of the quarterback’s college career was just that, a dream. After just
two seasons in Happy Valley O’Brien was named the head coach of the Houston
Texans, and left the burden of saving a major Divison-1 program who had just
been to hell and back on the shoulders of a kid, and he was just that, who
already had lofty expectations of a Heisman Trophy and the number one pick in
the NFL Draft. The story of Christian Hackenberg after Bill O’Brien left is
something Penn State fans should never forget.
James Franklin was named Penn State’s 16th head
coach almost two years after O’Brien. He came from Vanderbilt where he made the
Commodores relevant in a powerful SEC Conference. O’Brien still had a core of
players who had been around for a while, and who were comfortable playing
together, Franklin did not. Getting Penn State to where it used to be and to where
it belongs is a major project and to say James Franklin doesn’t know that is
absurd. To also say that the sanctions cannot be used as a crutch anymore is
also absurd; from day one everyone knew this was going to take 4-5 years for
whoever was coaching to fully get what they needed. This is year 2 of 5. It’s
going to take time for James Franklin to get his team in and get his
players in and establish his program.
College football fans are some of the most impatient fan
bases in all of sports and Penn State fans are no different. I’ve learned over
the years that patience is a virtue and that if you trust in the system good
things do happen. I’ll take you back to 2005 real quick; Penn State had won 7
games the previous two seasons in 2003 and 2004, they even lost to Iowa 6-4 in
State College. The only thing on the mind of fans was that Joe Paterno had to
go, he was too old and had to get out of his own way before he drove the
program into ground. That was until an 18-year old kid by the name of Derrick Williams got a visit from Paterno and made a promise to him that he could
change the face of Penn State football if he gave his commitment, Williams
pledged to Paterno and at the end of the 2005 season the Nittany Lions were
11-1 and had beaten Florida State in one of the most iconic college football
games of the 2000’s.
James Franklin isn’t going anywhere anytime soon; as
upsetting as that might be to some fans, the University has invested everything
they have into the 43-year old coach. This is a process that fans need to
trust. It’s going to be hard to watch at times, like it was Saturday against
Michigan, but that is part of the process. In three years when James Franklin
is holding up the Big Ten Championship trophy in Indianapolis, I’ll be the
first to say, “I told you so”.
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