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James Franklin on College Gameday Was a Brutal Listen
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
The reason I’m writing this 72 hours after it happened is because I was in Key West all weekend on a mini-honeymoon because that’s a thing us Millennials have made up, and when the Eagles pay the bills you get married and tell your wife we have to go to Italy in June. It’s still football season though, and when College Gameday announced James Franklin was going to be on I made it appointment viewing. So I sat on the resort beach, watched it, and wondered how anyone with half a brain saw this and thought Franklin came off looking good:
First off, this was a Jimmy Sexton special. He’s the agent for both Franklin and Nick Saban. Hell, he’s the agent for almost every premiere coach in football. He’s the Scott Boras of college football coaches. It’s a brilliant move by him to have his guy go on the biggest college football program in the world a week after his firing to read off his resume and campaign for another job while being lobbed softball questions and having the greatest coach of all time have his back. Even though I think he came off like a chud there are plenty of ADs around the country that watched this and will hire him after he made it clear he’s looking to get back into coaching immediately. There are plenty of coaches less deserving than Franklin that get opportunities. Bobby Petrino is back coaching Arkansas only 13 years after his whole scandal. Hugh Freeze lined up the Auburn job only a couple years after using an Ole Miss-issued cell phone to call prostitutes. Rick Pitino is the belle of the ball in college basketball and he’s got a CVS receipt-worth of scandal. Franklin looks like a saint compared to those guys and with Saban ball-washing him while calling it “unfair” he was fired in front of a national audience I wouldn’t be surprised if he has something lined up before the first bowl game is played. But come on. Unfair? I mean the guy had TWELVE YEARS in Happy Valley and could never win the big game. Saban doesn’t make it at Alabama for 12 years without a National Title. Franklin talked about pulling Penn State out of the ashes of the Jerry Sandusky scandal without giving any props to Bill O’Brien. This guy is better at PR than he is at coaching. Todd McShay nailed it this week:
PSU fans have to be thanking god JoePa they got rid of Franklin. He talks like the Nittany Lions weren’t ranked #2 at one point and then has the audacity to mention he made them into a contender every season, which no one outside of Happy Valley ever believed, until this year. The gambling handle on Penn State to win the CFP was over 25%. People around the nation finally started to believe and what did he do? He lost back-to-back games as a three-touchdown favorite. What could AD Pat Kraft look at as a reason to keep him? A fugazi final four appearance last year when they were handed a road easier than the B1G champion? His 4-21 record against top-10 teams? The fact they were becoming irrelevant in their own conference? There was no reason to keep Franklin other than his humongous buyout.
Then he maybe said one of the most tone deaf things I’ve ever heard. He took a shot at other programs as he mentioned Penn State “did it with integrity and class.” Give me a fucking break. Here’s a thread of James Franklin’s integrity and class:
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com