James Franklin highlights influx of minority coaches, praises Big Ten promoting hires based on 'work,' 'production'

Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin highlighted the influx of minority coaches to the conference during Big Ten Media Days. In particular, Franklin praised the Big Ten for promoting hires based on work and production.

With four new schools coming into the Big Ten for the 2024 season, there are now five minority coaches in the conference, making it one of the more diverse conferences.

“I’ll answer the second part first,” James Franklin said. “I love the fact that the Big Ten is one of the leaders in this space. I think that sends a very, very clear and loud message that people are going to be judged by their work and their production. I think the Big Ten is a great example of that.”

James Franklin is now one of the longest-tenured head coaches in the Big Ten, taking over at Penn State in 2014. At the time, he was one of only two minority coaches in the conference.

“Obviously something that myself and Mike Locksley and a bunch of guys have taken a ton of pride in and done a ton of work on as well, and hopefully that becomes more of a trend across college football as well as the NFL,” Franklin said.

“I just spent some time the other day with Raheem Morris, who’s one of my best friends. He was the defensive coordinator at Kansas State when I was the offensive coordinator. He’s now the head coach at the Atlanta Falcons, getting a second chance, which is also not common. So that’s powerful.”

Still, for James Franklin, the focus is going to be on the field this season at Penn State. There, he thinks he can have one of the more special teams he’s had going back to his time at Vanderbilt.

“About our team and maybe some of the similarities to some of the teams we had at Vanderbilt and over our time at Penn State as well, I think it starts with the three gentlemen that we brought with us to this event, guys that are experienced guys, guys that have had a ton of success on the football field. They’ve handled themselves the right way academically on and off the field, and have won a ton of games,” Franklin said.

“They’re guys that embrace that we’re at a place like Penn State where we’ve been able to consistently, for the most part, win 10 or 11 games, but that’s not the expectation at Penn State. They chose Penn State just like I chose Penn State, to compete for championships, and we embrace that.”

Expectations are clearly high going into the 2024 season for Penn State and James Franklin knows that. He also knows that, for now, the focus needs to be on the field.

“But we are one of the few programs in the country you can win 10 or 11 games and people are unhappy,” Franklin said. “So we embrace that, and we’re excited about those opportunities, and it starts for us at West Virginia in Morgantown, which is going to be a challenging opening game.”