James Franklin on signal Jim Knowles hire sends: ‘Commitment has matched expectations’

There are few schools with bigger expectations every season than Penn State. Head coach James Franklin knows that well. Now, he thinks that the school’s commitment is matching those expectations.

This is a shift that Franklin has noticed in recent seasons under athletic director Pat Kraft. The hiring of defensive coordinator Jim Knowles is the next step in proving that commitment has reached Happy Valley.

“Yeah, I think it’s very telling,” James Franklin said. “I think it goes back to that statement I made earlier that, you know, in my — I guess what is it going on 12 years now? I think the last two years, our commitment has matched our expectations — I don’t know if I would have said that before. I think Pat’s been with us for three years — and the only reason I didn’t say three years before is when you first get here, that first year you’re figuring everything out. But yeah, I think to a passionate and hungry fan base, I think it speaks volumes. I think it speaks volumes.”

Penn State is one of the traditional powers in all of college football with a vaunted history. Now, with the Nittany Lions having won at least 10 games in a season in the last three seasons, they’re looking to take the next step. Poaching Ohio State‘s defensive coordinator and making him the highest-paid coordinator in college football is a major indicator of that.

The fact that James Franklin needed to hire a new defensive coordinator did surprise some people, but he was ready to manage Tom Allen‘s departure.

“So, as you guys know, I always have a list ahead of time. Will Reimann does a really good job for us in that where he’ll bring names to me, I’ll bring names to him. Whenever we hire a new staff member, I always ask them feedback about who’s the best people you’ve worked with, where you came from, and those types of things. So, we’re constantly working on lists. But you know, the thing that’s interesting is, and we’ve talked about this before, when we lose somebody in any position, it’s a painstaking process to fill the position. There’s not as many qualified people out there as people may think. So, going through that process and making sure we get the right person,” Franklin said.

“What’s great about being at a place like Penn State, I’ve been at places in my career where you have a dream list and they’re not really realistic. Your dream list at Penn State is realistic, specifically now with the support that we have. But again, it was a twisting and turning process.”

Since Jim Knowles led Ohio State to a national championship on the defensive side of the ball, James Franklin did need to wait to talk to him. However, as the game ended, talks picked up between the two sides.

“You know, I think I got a call at 5:40 in the morning two days after the national championship, and that’s when I thought it may be real. There may have a chance before that, but we hadn’t had any communication. And this isn’t one of these talks where I say I haven’t had any communication, but I had been talking to his agent, like there was it was none. We had been talking to a ton of other guys and vetting and going through the process, but you know it’s kind of a twisting and a winding deal. There’s guys that you think you may be able to get and you can’t, you know, we looked at NFL guys, we looked at college guys, kind of kept narrowing the list down, hadn’t made any offers,” Franklin said.

“And then this became a possibility, and then, I think, getting to figure out both sides’ interest levels took a little bit of time, and then are you actually going to be able to get it done? And from our perspective, we knew what other jobs were open, some really good jobs, so that played a factor into it as well, but I would say he was on an initial list, but there’s a lot of people on that list.”

Expectations will be massive in Happy Valley after hiring Jim Knowles next season. The question now is whether or not Penn State can live up to them.