James Franklin needs a win more than any coach in the nation this weekend | College Football Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss the news that Penn State head coach James Franklin signed CAA’s Jimmy Sexton to be his new agent amid rumors that he could be a candidate for the USC or LSU jobs, and debate if any coach needs a win more than Franklin this weekend again Ohio State.
Video Transcript
[BAT HITS BALL, CROWD CHEERS]
DAN WETZEL: Word breaks that on Monday, James Franklin gets a new agent, Jimmy Sexton of CAA, the power agent. Boy, that's not really a good time for that news to break for old James Franklin.
PAT FORDE: After laying a dinosaur egg at home against Illinois.
PETE THAMEL: It did happen a while ago. But he said that today. And actually, that happened weeks ago. But I can't disagree that the timing is bad.
DAN WETZEL: Not good to break, that's all I sadi.
PETE THAMEL: It's not a new revelation.
DAN WETZEL: I mean, if I'm a Penn State fan, like, what? So all the jobs open, and all of a sudden, you get the new agent. And what are we doing? Are we talking about next year's job? Why are you getting an agent? I thought you were focused on this, 1 and 0, 1 and 0, that's what he always tweets out.
Since you got the agent, you lost to Iowa, and you lost to Illinois. I mean, you're getting paid this much money and this much expectation, that's it. Are you focused, or are you not? And that's not a great look for James Franklin. Coach that could use a victory this weekend, put James Franklin pretty high up on that list.
PAT FORDE: That's for sure.
DAN WETZEL: Pat?
PAT FORDE: Yes. But also I think very low on the probability.
PETE THAMEL: Yes.
PAT FORDE: The problems that this team have been problems that James Franklin's teams have had kind of repeatedly, offensive line play, where they have really never been that good. You lose one game, and it snowballs into two, which always goes against Franklin's thing of, I am only focused on one game. Well, then how come you keep losing a game after that game?
The school has given him everything he's asked for in terms of support staff, facilities, fundraising, and everything. And here they are with two losses. And you're staring at three really difficult games to go. And if you go 7 and 5 with this team, it makes it look like last year's big disappointment was less of a COVID Mulligan than maybe it was panned off as being.
So there's some Penn State fans that I know I've talked to like, eh, if he wants to go, let him. If he stays, OK, but it's not like we're going to sit here and cry because James Franklin may be walking out. So if he's planning on the Jimmy Sexton stick-up, give me 8 million, or I walk, I don't think there would be a lot of people that would be in favor of giving him eight million.
PETE THAMEL: Yeah, it's an interesting crossroads for James. It almost seems like it would be a good time for him to go. He's done that place pretty well. He has an unbelievable recruiting class coming. He has the number one quarterback, depending on who you talk to, coming in. They got another very good quarterback in the next class behind there.
They've got a ton of high-end guys coming. So it's hard to say the future is dark because the future is as bright-- other than Saquon, I mean, they have as good of like crew of recruits coming in as they've had.
That said, just sometimes, it's hard to get past seven in college football, because he can go to one of these new places. And he's going to have the new car sent again. He's had some excellent years at Penn State. And he's had some underwhelming years at Penn State. And this one for James and his long-term future is trending towards underwhelming at the wrong time, in the wake of sort of a year that was cast aside as a bit of a COVID hiccup.
I really think the big game for James is going to be Michigan, going there, because that series' history, Penn State has really stomped Michigan in State College. And James is a little batty today too. He said we're focused on Illinois twice when he was talking about Ohio State.
And then instead of saying we're go to The Horseshoe, he said, we're going to the Big House. Again, we all misspeak and everything. But that just seemed like an odd time. I'm not going to read too much into that. But it just seemed odd.
DAN WETZEL: I don't know. You don't hire Jimmy Sexton if you're just not focused on this whole thing at all. Like what? Jobs open? I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Get me Sexton.
