Is God punishing James Franklin? Coach refused to take 10 percent pay cut as requested by Penn State President Eric Barron, who makes $4.79 million less than the football coach
… Not God, but karma more likely -- 0-3 start is worst in 19 years
The despondency in “Happy Valley” over the Nittany Lions 0-3 start to their 2020 season is palpable.
After last week’s loss to Maryland for just the third time in 44 years, Onward State lamented in this way,
0-3 starts have been few and far between for Penn State football, and they almost never bode well for the Nittany Lions’ prospects the rest of the way.
After Saturday’s embarrassing loss to Maryland, James Franklin can now celebrate his first winless three-game start as Penn State’s head coach. This is also the program’s first 0-3 start since 2001, so it’s about as bad as it can get for the Nittany Lions.
Entering Saturday’s contest, Penn State hadn’t fallen to Maryland since a 20-19 loss at Beaver Stadium in 2014. In fact, it was well-documented that the Nittany Lions hadn’t even allowed a touchdown to the Terrapins since 2016. With that in mind, it felt as if Nittany Nation took a collective sigh of relief with a seemingly inferior Maryland squad coming to town, myself included.
Will Pegler, “Putting Penn State football’s 0-3 start into perspective,”
Onward State, November 10, 2020
That has placed Coach James Franklin under severe scrutiny particularly since the Nittany Lions were ranked 8th in the country in the AP poll when they started their season just four weeks ago.
However, what is very interesting along these lines is that Franklin, who had his contract extended well into the 2020’s last year, is the highest paid employee at Penn State but declined to take a ten percent pay cut are asked by the university president.
Franklin makes $5.65 million before bonuses
According to a USA Today database of coaching salaries, Franklin is making $5.65 million this season, which ranks him as 11th in the country and certainly seems to make extending his contract last year look like a woeful investment.
However, the appalling part of this has to do with something that I wrote about earlier this year [link below].
Penn State President Eric Barron asked that all top PSU administrators, himself included, take a ten percent cut in salary because of the dire financial straits in which the university found itself.
According to the Altoona Mirror’s Neil Rudel, Franklin declined to do so.
Penn State, according to Barron, was projected to lose at least $260 million over the next 14 months, the Centre Daily Times reported.
In 2019, the CDT listed Barron’s salary before bonuses as $855,228, and since he took a 10 percent pay cut, that would now be $769,706, which would be $4,880,294 less than Franklin’s salary without his taking a cut.
Is this God’s will or just Karma?
To be clear, I do not believe in a punishing, hateful God, but one who is merciful — if we deserve it. In this case, some people are saying that Franklin is being punished by God for his selfishness in not taking a pay cut when people are losing their jobs or having their pay cut at PSU.
More than likely, it is just karma, being punished for his previous actions.
In any case, not many people are lined up in Franklin’s corner, especially those who have lost jobs or had their salaries cut back significantly by the university.
In any event, Franklin is in big trouble right now.
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