James Franklin reveals most shocking discoveries after taking Penn State job

James Franklin was more than eager to get started at Penn State when he took the job, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t plenty of surprises.

The Nittany Lions went through a slight rough patch before Franklin got started, but the former Vanderbilt head coach knew that coming in. Still, there was more work to be done than met the eye, according to Franklin.

“Well I think the first thing, the surprise was things that I found out about the sanctions that they didn’t tell me during the interview process,” laughed Franklin, via Next Up with Adam Breneman. “Like that we had three players walking around on campus still on football scholarship that I couldn’t replace. Just some crazy things like that.

“I don’t even think I knew about the game in Ireland. Like my first game is in Dublin, Ireland. I’m like, can we just have a game where you know, in State College or at least somewhere in the United States.”

While the game across the Atlantic was unexpected, the thing that shocked Franklin the most was Penn State’s facilities, and how guarded their players were towards him.

“But you know, I guess when I got here, I was shocked at how far behind the facilities were,” added the Nittany Lions leader. “Technology was. The bones were phenomenal, but I was kind of shocked about things like that. I just, that was surprising to me. And then I think the other thing was the players, the players themselves kind of had a wall up, because I think if I remember correctly I was like the fifth head coach in 27 months, if you count interim head coaches and all those types of things. So the players were really tight, after going through a ton of adversity, as you know. But it was almost like, ‘Okay, here’s another head coach that’s standing up in front of us,’ and there was a trust that had to be established with them, that was harder to do than when I first went to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt had no success, so like literally as soon as they saw that I cared, and that I had a plan, they were all in. They were all in.

“At Penn State, because we’ve never really hit rock bottom, and there’s been so much turnover after no turnover for fifty years, there was a wall built up that kind of needed to be broken down.”

Thankfully for Penn State, James Franklin has helped advance their program and get back to competing for national titles, as they should be one of the sexy picks to win in 2023.