I was once a great supporter of James Franklin, but no more

… sportsmanship is important to me 

During the tough years, I supported James Franklin — even during the rape allegations at Vanderbilt when he was there.

Yes, I am an alumnus of Penn State, but I have been critical of its football program in the past. Still, I felt that Franklin was a good man, a good choice for Penn State head football coach. He had me rooting for Penn State again — though that has now ended.

While he finally convinced the nay-sayers of his ability two years ago when his team roared from behind to beat Penn State and then win the Big Ten title, a tremendous accomplishment since they were still suffering from the NCAA sanctions, I felt good about that.

However, I have gradually been questioning some of his decisions — and particularly, his attitude, which I believe has become arrogant.

Still, I supported him until I watched what he did last Saturday night. It was not so much that he ran up the score on Pitt, which was 14-6 at the half but ended up 51-6. It was the way in which this took place.

However, since I did not watch the second half of the game, I was not certain exactly what had transpired in the fourth quarter. After doing so, and listening to some Penn State supporters, like former QB Todd Blackledge, who was doing the color of the game for ABC/ESPN, I was appalled.

Tricky: What is “running up the score”?

As a person who coached football on a variety of levels for almost a quarter-century, I have been on both sides of the running up the score situation. I remember calling a play in a high school game in which we were ahead by four or five TDs that was later questioned by the opposing coach.

What happened was that were ahead late in the game and put our JV team in to get some experience. However, the opposing coach, who still had most of his first team in the game, decided to make certain that our young kids could not even run a play. What he did was blitz nine men at a time. That meant that our backs could not even get out of the backfield.

After doing this for one series and forcing us to punt, I decided to make him back off. I had our quarterback throw a short slant pass that is usually good for eight to ten yards, hoping that the opponent would then have to back off blitzing everyone.

However, the slant ended up going for a touchdown because the other team had just two defensive backs and out receiver was pretty fast. We did not intend to score another touchdown, but we did.

So, the coach was upset, perhaps justifiably, but this was intended to only get a first down and have him back off. Still, it looked bad, like we were trying to run up the score.

On the other end, after taking a college job that I knew was going to be challenging, we went to Erie to play Mercyhurst, which was then like we were, NCAA Div. III. The only difference was that Mercyhurst was pouring a ton of money into their program, and our team was pitiably poor.

We dressed 38 players, they dressed more than 120. At the end of the first quarter, our kids, who played their hearts out in 80-degree temps, were down just 6-0. The final score was 68-0, and they just kept putting in fresh players while ours were really tired.

A reporter from Erie who appeared to be digging for some dirt on the coach, tried to prod me into saying that he ran up the score. I simply said that I hoped that some day I would be able to compete with them having enough of a roster to substitute. I did not take the bait.

Certainly, he did run up the score, but that was more the nature of the programs at the time, not a problem of running up the score. I will return to this at the end.

Did Franklin run up the score?

The first part of the analysis of the Pitt-Penn State game is to admit that the Panthers played very poorly, and their coaching was suspect in many areas. The major problem as I watched the second half was that they were horrible on special teams, which led to the Penn State scores.

In fact, Pitt should have been winning at halftime had they not made some terrible mistakes. They were in the Red Zone three times and came out with just six points. They missed a kick for a PAT, but it was played in a driving rainstorm, which was a factor.

However, despite that, Franklin did some things that bothered me an others. One occurred at the end of the game, which precipitated some comments from Blackledge. With about a minute to go in the game and the Lions up 51-6, Franklin challenged a call by an official, forcing it to be viewed by the officials upstairs.

That led to a discussion on TV in which Blackledge said that passing for a TD with a six touchdown lead was one thing, but challenging this was horrible.

ABC announcer: “James wants to win this. He looks at the big screen and says, ‘I’m right’.

“But, at what cost?” Blackledge replied.

The former Penn State QB was right. How does that make a coach look if he challenges an official’s call with a 45-point lead?

However, when I looked at some other issues, why did Franklin have his quarterback, Trace McSorley, in the game with a five-touchdown lead?

Then with seven minutes left, he puts in his backup, but has him pass for a touchdown. That really rankled me. I thought of what happened to our kids at Mercyhurst. I still recalled that feeling, not so much for me, but for our kids. He tried to embarrass us, and he succeeded.

The irony of this is that the Mercyhurst coach was hired a few years later as an offensive coordinator at a Div. I school. He lasted just weeks before he was fired. It took him another 15 years to secure another head coaching job, and he spent some years in a school in Kansas that I never knew existed, Washburn. What goes around comes around, they say, and James Franklin should be aware of that.

Franklin may receive his comeuppance

The other area of concern for me with Franklin has been his attitude. It fits within one of the problems that I have had with Penn State for decades. When I wrote stories or attended football media days at Penn State, it was much different from Pitt or other Div. I schools that I contacted. Penn State had an arrogance with its sports information people, something that started at the top and moved down.

The Sandusky situation removed that for a while, but it was returned. Franklin demeaned Pitt with his arrogance when he compared that game in importance with one with Akron. At that point, he lost me. When the other stuff occurred, he lost me for good. I will never watch another PSU game, though I have not watched many in the past few years. I still have the Sandusky bitter taste in my mouth to a certain extent.

So, by passing for a touchdown when he was ahead by 38 points and then challenging a call by an official with a minute to go when he was ahead by 45 points, he lost me for good.

Franklin will be hard pressed to win ten or eleven games this year. I think that Ohio State will enter Beaver Stadium and maul the Lions. PSU is not that good. 

College athletics no longer important

At one time I was a big Penn State fan, a big Joe Paterno fan, but that dissipated when I learned that the football program was bigger than the university.

I wrote an outraged letter to the PSU alumni association, which prints a magazine for members. In it, instead of talking about the advances that affect 99.9 percent of its students, all it had in it was football stuff. I told them that I never wanted to belong again, and that I would never donate money to Penn State again until it changed its attitude.

I am proud of the education that I received at Penn State as an undergrad and grad student. I loved it there, always will. I am proud of the educators at Penn State. They are fabulous.

I no longer have any interest in its sports. James brought me back, but he has demonstrated that he is just another arrogant jock who forgot his Div. II football roots.