Penn State coach James Franklin: Forget the pot shots, Big Ten, SEC have earned right to 'biggest number, biggest presence' in 2024 CFP field
Penn State coach James Franklin does his best to stay in a submarine with his players and coaches throughout the regular season. It goes without saying, though, that hearing the outside noise surrounding the weekly College Football Playoff top 25 is almost certainly unavoidable. Television networks, social media, and media outlets across the country spend days dissecting the latest rankings. Talk this week centers on Indiana strength of schedule this, Penn State and Texas lack of quality wins that, how should the SEC be compared to the Big Ten, one-loss vs. two-loss teams, and so on and so forth. On Sun., Dec. 8, the talk will stop, and the final selections will be made for the inaugural 12-team field.
Two weeks of regular season games plus conference championship Saturday will all determine who’s in and who’s out. But, in the mind of the 11th-year leader of the Lions, who started his time as a head coach in the SEC before coming to the Big Ten, there is no question about how things should ultimately shake out.
James Franklin weighs in on the current CFP ‘narratives’
Here is Franklin’s full answer verbatim to a question about the strength of the new Big Ten:
“I think it’s interesting, because there’s this battle going on right now out, you know, in terms of the narrative of college football, of who should be in, right? We talked about this before,” Franklin said. “It was four, and everybody argued, we got to go to 12. We get to 12. And what’s happening? Everybody’s arguing that 14, 15, 16, are getting screwed. And we talked about the basketball tournament, right? How many is that? 68 and what happens there? Sixty-nine and 70 [think they should be in]. So, this is part of it. But I’ll say this. I mean, obviously I’m concerned about Penn State, and obviously I’m concerned about the Big Ten. But, I’m one of the few guys that have been a head coach in both conferences.
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“And to me, the right thing to be talking about is the two best conferences in all college football are the Big Ten and the SEC. And, we should have the most teams in. I don’t think there’s any question to that. I think where it becomes problematic is, when you have rules for certain teams and certain conferences to get in, and maybe people don’t feel like they’re actually in the top 12. So I get it.
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“We’re fortunate. We’re part of the two conferences that I think everybody would agree are the two strongest conferences. I don’t think we need to take shots in the Big Ten at the SEC, because that’s been proven over time, and I don’t think the SEC should be taking shots at the Big Ten. We’re in a really, really good position, both conferences. I don’t think there’s any argument there. And the reality is, whether people’s feelings are hurt or not, these two conferences need to have the biggest number and the biggest presence in the Playoffs, because we’ve earned it throughout the season.”
This week’s top 12 features four Big Ten teams, including Penn State at No. 4, in the top five. The SEC has one top-five representative, No. 3 Texas, and four others currently in the top 12. An additional four teams from both conferences combined fall between Nos. 13-25, giving the two leagues more than 50 percent of the top 25 and 75 percent of the top 12.
Will it stay that way come Dec. 8? Time will tell. But in Franklin’s mind, it should. That much was made clear on Wednesday night.
