New staff, same challenge: Inside James Franklin's quest to lead Penn State to the CFP

It was a response to the first question during James Franklin's news conference earlier this week in which the Penn State head coach indirectly referenced the breadth of challenges facing his program in 2024, a season that will feature three new coordinators and the vacancies left by eight primary contributors selected in this spring's NFL Draft, four of whom were taken in the first three rounds. Gone, too, are the five wide receivers who entered the transfer portal, headlined by No. 1 target KeAndre Lambert-Smith, now a projected starter at Auburn. 

A little more than a year ago, ahead of arguably the most anticipated Penn State season of his tenure, Franklin espoused the importance of making miniscule improvements as a means of finally getting the Nittany Lions over the hump and into the College Football Playoff. He mentioned the idea of his coordinators — Mike Yurcich (offense), Manny Diaz (defense) and Stacy Collins (special teams) — "making one better call" over the course of a game. He cited the need for players to have "two or three more championship-level workouts in the summer." He talked about the importance of "one more recruiting win" to secure the kind of player who can make a difference in the biggest moment of a game. For a program that already had steadiness and staying power as a perennial top-10 or top-15 team, these were the lesser-known margins where Franklin felt Penn State could still grow. 

So when Franklin was asked on Monday to share his thoughts about the freshly announced contract extension for Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft, a huge proponent of the football program who will now continue with the Nittany Lions through 2032, Franklin's response was telling when juxtaposed with the large-scale changes his program has endured since last season. 

"First of all," Franklin said in response to the question about Kraft's new deal, "I think stability in college athletics and college football has a chance to be a differentiator like probably never before. I think it's always been a differentiator if you look at certain programs across the country. Now, I think it's magnified more with the amount of turnover that you see. So I think that's really important."

Coaches and athletic directors across the country undoubtedly share Franklin's opinion that any semblance of stability — or any shred of it, really — has become increasingly desirable in what amounts to a free market economy in college football, a place where rosters are transformed seemingly overnight and buyouts for struggling coaches have never been so large, so lucrative and so willingly paid. That Franklin is routinely vilified by fans despite winning at least 10 games in a season five times over the last eight years speaks to the incredibly lofty expectations in a sport that, until now, only admitted four teams to its postseason tournament. Even when Franklin secured a Big Ten Championship in 2016, which was the school's first conference title in eight years, his team still finished as a bridesmaid instead of the bride, such was the exclusivity of the College Football Playoff. Ohio State (five appearances), Michigan (three) and Michigan State (one) are the only Big Ten teams to qualify for the four-team format. 

Yet as the Nittany Lions prepare for a tricky season opener at West Virginia on Saturday (12 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app), they do so with a path toward the playoff that is simultaneously more straightforward than ever, while also shrouded by more unknowns than Franklin has faced in recent years. Only three teams have reached the College Football Playoff in a season where new hires were made at both offensive and defensive coordinator, according to FOX Sports Research — TCU in 2022, Alabama in 2018 and Florida State in 2014 — and now Penn State is aiming to be the fourth, a task made even more complicated by the addition of a new special teams coordinator as well. But never has the sport's postseason been as welcoming as it will be this fall when the format expands to 12 teams, and in that respect, this could be Franklin's best chance to finally join the College Football Playoff party, especially after the Big Ten eliminated divisions, ridding the Nittany Lions of annual contests against Michigan and Ohio State.  

"We are one of the few programs in the country where you can win 10 or 11 games and people are unhappy," Franklin said at Big Ten Media Days in late July. "So we embrace that, and we're excited about those opportunities, and it starts for us at West Virginia in Morgantown."

The changes to Franklin's coaching staff and roster are, in many ways, direct reflections of the program's on-field strengths and weaknesses the last few seasons. Yurcich was fired in mid-November amid a third consecutive underwhelming campaign. He'd been instrumental in the identification and recruitment of five-star quarterback Drew Allar, a native of Medina, Ohio, but his offenses finished 82nd and 34th in his only two full seasons as the team's OC and ranked well outside the top 50 before his departure last fall. The downfield passing game regressed so much that Lambert-Smith was the only receiver who topped 250 yards in 2023, even with the strong-armed Allar taking over for longtime veteran Sean Clifford. Lambert-Smith (Auburn), Dante Cephas (Kansas State), Malik McClain (Arizona State), Malick Meiga (Coastal Carolina) and Cristian Driver (Minnesota) were all wideouts who entered the transfer portal between December and May.

In need of his sixth offensive coordinator in 11 seasons, Franklin turned to Kansas' Andy Kotelnicki, viewed by many as a rising star in the profession. Kotelnicki transformed the Jayhawks into one of the most explosive offenses in college football during a three-year stretch in which Kansas ranked 12th nationally in percentage of plays gaining at least 20 yards (8.3%) and 15th in percentage of plays gaining at least 30 yards (3.9%). His units also ranked 10th in passing plays of 15-plus yards during that stretch (21%). In total, Kansas topped 40 points nine times from 2021-23 with Kotelnicki as offensive coordinator and exceeded 50 points five times.  

"Very pleased with the physicality, the growth mindsets of the individuals, the desire to improve, the willingness to learn football and how we're trying to win football games, you know?" Kotelnicki said in mid-August. "There are a lot of philosophical discussions that we have and the explaining of why we run plays the way we do. I think [those] are really important. That's what we wanna be able to do on offense so people know why they're running a certain scheme. And the learning and the understanding and the wanting to know why, I think, is really important."

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Diaz left to become the head coach at Duke following an impressive two-year run in which the Nittany Lions ranked 17th nationally in total defense (323.5 yards per game) and ninth in scoring defense (18.2 points per game) in 2022 before vaulting to second in total defense (247.6 yards per game) and third in scoring defense (13.5 points per game) last year. Six of Diaz's players were drafted during that span, including four in the first three rounds. The 2024 squad must replace starting edge rushers Chop Robinson (Round 1, Pick 21, Miami Dolphins) and Adisa Isaac (Round 3, Pick 93, Baltimore Ravens) and starting cornerbacks Daequan Hardy (Round 6, Pick 219, Buffalo Bills) and Kalen King (Round 7, Pick 255, Green Bay Packers).

To lead the unit, Franklin hired former Indiana head coach Tom Allen, a well-respected defensive mind who cut his teeth at the high school and lower collegiate levels before breaking through at Ole Miss (linebackers and special teams), South Florida (defensive coordinator) and Indiana (defensive coordinator and associate head coach), ultimately taking over the Hoosiers in 2017. There are schematic similarities between Allen's 4-2-5 system and the 4-3/4-2-5 hybrid employed by Diaz the last two years. The decision by Franklin and Allen to retain the core assistants from Diaz's staff should ease the transition this fall.  

"It was an important process to be able to do a good job of meshing, you know, the good things that we felt like they've obviously been doing here for the last couple years for sure," Allen said in early August. "So you want to be able to continue to highlight those things, but also be able to bring the things that I believe in and know and want to make sure we can have [in place]. So I was really just praying for wisdom to be able to know how much of each [I need to do], and that will be revealed here [shortly]."

It's the same challenge Franklin has faced for most of his tenure at Penn State, an ongoing quest to sharpen the things that worked well but never quite well enough. This time, the changes were more extreme. But Penn State's goal of reaching the College Football Playoff remains unchanged. 

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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