It amazes me the people that staunchly defend Franklin at this point and think he is doing a good maybe some even think great job (God is that bizarre). These must be the same people as bosses who when their employees tell them they only will work 3 days a week and will let you know when that is and will give minimal effort they just say "ok". Unbelievable, wake up people, the emperor has no clothes.
Joe Pa said in 2004 when it seemed imminent of his demise....
- Thread starter Mr. Potter
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Well, to be clear....they were. OB had to fight for from day 1 because they were that behind.
Look. Paterno was not that amazing. Look at the numbers compared to many others and it's not that great. He was very good in bowl games. Just OK in bowl games with highly ranked teams. 3 BIG championships in 19 yrs. Franklin has 1 in 8. Just about on pace with Paterno. Don't get me wrong Joe was an amazing man and coach. Just not what many think he was. The teams in the mid late 90's thru 2004 for were not anything special at all. He just stayed way too long
Yea. Those 2000-2004 teams were so tough. How? Also, the 99 team that was #1 loses to Minny and gets road graded in back to back games by Michigan and Michigan State. How exactly were they tough?
Omg. You are delusional. Paterno was about national championships and played In 4, that is 4 of them without a playoff. If playoff he would have played in 15!!!
winningest coach of all time and best in bowls all time and 5 undefeated seasons
omg!!!
Becaaause....
He didn't develop talent.
Called too many timeouts and look disorganized, other teams play up tempo, not him..
His teams weren't a) physical enough, 2) fast enough, and 3) see a and 2.
Where's the fullback?????
Lost interest.
Has bad assistants.
Too loyal to assistants, including his defensive coordinator.
Football has changed but the program hasn't.
Strength training sucks.
Is an ok recruiter, but why don't we have 22 5-stars like X, Y and Z Tech?
Calls wrong plays when he overrules his assistants.
Folds his arms too much, not emotional enough, no fire.
Too concerned about off-field issues, we the rabble pay BWI so you can blow your whistle.
OMG. I just realized the same list of coaching criticisms was spouted by the goobers on this site in 2004!
History does repeat itself.
For a weight room, which he got. And that may have been more from a change in training philosophy than the equipment being out of date.
And dorms/apartments, locker rooms, additional staffing, facilities.....and on and on and on. Not sure why you don't think PSU was out of date, but ok.
Yeah and everyone else that I can think of which is probably why he has the most wins in college football history.
Uh Paterno didn't have to deal with sanctions for the first 8 years of his career now did he?
Or maybe the Singleton kid from Governor Mifflin. 320 yards on 15 carries and 7 TDs last week in the playoffs isn't too shabby.
What is it specifically that you think Penn State doesn't spend money on, relative to most other college programs? It certainly isn't any of the things you listed in your post.
97-98-99 teams were 9-3, 9-3, and 10-3 respectively…far cry from 4-5 and 6-6/7-5
The 97 and 99 teams were very disappointing I think they ranked 5 and 1 respectively into mid/late November and the bottom fell out on both of them. I remember the message board crowd in the plotit days were booking Rose Bowl rooms and packages in 99 expecting that game to be for the National Championship. The 99 Minnesota game along with the 98 OSU game were the quietest I ever heard Beaver Stadium when the game ended, everyone walked out without a word uttered.
2011 team was bad IMO.. Their record didn't tell the story they played one team with a pulse and got dominated (Alabama) and beat a bunch of .500 teams by a TD and less. Remember the 10-7 nail biter vs Illinois or the 13-3 vs Purdue, or the 16-10 domination of Indiana?
Are you talking about today or 2010? When we had someone new come in in 2012/2013 they immediately went to work trying to play catch up and they still are. Both HC's have had to battle for this too....it's really not too hard to understand. Do you think PSU was leading the charge towards the end of Joe's career? PSU got passed by a decade or so back and they are playing catch up.
Today. What, if anything, does Penn State not have today, that most of their competitors do, that puts Penn State at a disadvantage?
Of course Franklin had to rebuild from the sanctions. It was fair to cut him some slack early on, but after several outstanding years of recruiting in a row, does he still get the same benefit of the doubt? Those days/excuses should be long past at this point. Why is he performing worse now with better recruits than he did when the sanctions were still visible in the rear view mirror?
How about this....why don't you tell me where PSU is leading any top 5 school. Living facilities, staff pay, size of admin support staff.....and what has taken place in the last 4-5 years in order to try and get there. Since Joe has left....new weightroom, new locker rooms, finally bumped the staffs pay but that was a fight. So where is PSU in the front of the pack in the college arms race? PSU is making progress, but PSU was a sleep at the wheel while Joe was there and they are still recovering from it. So you tell me where PSU is leading the charge in college football...it should be a huge list. I'm not sure if it bothers you that I say Joe was a sleep at the wheel or that PSU isn't leading the college football world in facilities.
top 10
One of the big reasons, I think, that rarely is mentioned is that Penn State has had more football players leave via the portal than any other Big Ten program, since the portal was opened three years ago.
Why is that? I don't know. I think we often hear that the portal will be used by players searching for playing time, so you would think the top programs would lose more players for that reason, and Penn State is, relatively, a top program - but not at the level of Ohio State, who has lost far fewer. Or that a lot of players leave when a head coach is fired, like what happened to Auburn last year, but that has not been the case at Penn State.
I wasn't claiming anything. I thought you were claiming that Penn State was somehow behind, or at some competitive disadvantage. I apologize. My mistake. No offense intended, it was an honest, if misplaced, question.How about this....why don't you tell me where PSU is leading any top 5 school. Living facilities, staff pay, size of admin support staff.....and what has taken place in the last 4-5 years in order to try and get there. Since Joe has left....new weightroom, new locker rooms, finally bumped the staffs pay but that was a fight. So where is PSU in the front of the pack in the college arms race? PSU is making progress, but PSU was a sleep at the wheel while Joe was there and they are still recovering from it. So you tell me where PSU is leading the charge in college football...it should be a huge list. I'm not sure if it bothers you that I say Joe was a sleep at the wheel or that PSU isn't leading the college football world in facilities.
top 10
I think we agree that Penn State is currently more than ably equipped to compete at the highest levels, at least as far as the resources at their disposal are concerned.
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Ok, so they aren't leading in anything. That is what I was saying and the links kind of show you where they are still lacking. Facilities, staff pay....I was hoping you could at least show me where they are a top 5-10 school in anything outside of JF's salary. PSU has gotten better, but they aren't even in the top 25 when it comes to facilities. That stuff doesn't matter though, as the guys on the top of that list only compete for national titles.
I could make a long list of areas, with respect to resources, where Penn State is "leading" - let's say in the Top 10 nationally. Things that a potential coach would look at and say, I would like to have that.
Head Coach Pay, Staff Pay, Administrative and Support Staff Spending, Total Revenue, Total Football Spending, Stadium Capacity, Amount spent on Current Facilities - like the strength training facilities, practice facilities, locker rooms and all that stuff, Attendance, and on and on. All resources that I think any of us would conclude are an asset to a successful program.
I would have a much harder time trying to find a "resource" with which they are, currently, significantly behind. That is why I asked the initial question.
If we look at the current Top 15 in the rankings, which of these coaches would trade places today for Penn State's resources, as outlined above, as opposed to their own?
Georgia, probably a wash, thanks to Georgia's recent spending on an indoor facility that they didn't have until recently, and football building upgrades.
Alabama. No.
Cincinnati. Well, obviously Yes
Oregon. Yes
Ohio State. No
Notre Dame. Probably a wash
Michigan State. Yes, in a heartbeat
Michigan. Probably a wash
Oklahoma State. Yes, in a heartbeat
Mississippi. Yes, in a heartbeat
Baylor. Yes, in a heartbeat
Oklahoma. Probably a wash, although their total budget is significantly lower
Wake Forest. Yes, in a heartbeat
BYU. Yes, in a heartbeat
Texas-San Antonio. Yes
So, of the Top 15, you have two who would definitely take their own, and four who would probably be a coin flip, and 9 who would be thrilled to have the resources Penn State has. Does that mean Penn State is "leading"? I don't know, depends on how you define it, but they certainly are not at any inherent disadvantage with regard to being able to field a Top 15 program. The very few programs that would feel they have more than Penn State have one thing in common, much higher levels of booster donations. So, do the boosters who want "more" need to open up the checkbooks?
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Some people think 7-5 is successful or 1 BT title in a decade is too. Did you find PSU in that link I posted?
I don't know who might think that 7-5, at a place like Penn State, is successful. For what it's worth, I wouldn't, but I have no idea what someone else might think, but I didn't think that how someone might define successful was the topic we were discussing.
As for the "list", a list put together by some kid from North Carolina Pembroke, who spent 3 minutes writing a blog from his basement in Fayetteville North Carolina?
Who thinks that South Carolina has better resources than Ohio State?
I thought we were talking about what resources Penn State, currently, is lacking, that put them at a disadvantage with regard to running a highly-competitive program. But I guess that was wrong, because no one seems to have any idea what those might be.
No hard feelings, I'll just leave it at that.
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Woah! Calm down. First of all he coached for half a century. 2 nattys and playing for 4 isn't that amazing considering 46yrs. He was an amazing man and coach. He made Penn State what is is. He's just not some super freak many of you think he was. The man should have had called it a career before it started to get embarrassing for him. Could have gone out on top. Lots of coaches out there, given 46 yrs at the head job could have matched his numbers.
Ok no problem. PSU isn't spending 50 million currently on anything because they were clearly set....got it. No hard feelings at all.
Don't recall O'Brien making an issue of any of those. Ever see Belichick's office?
How many coaches played for 4 national championships since 1975? 3, 4? maybe? Yea nothing amazing about that.
OK. My point. After 1994 it wasn't anything special. Plus given half a century to add up trophies, it wasn't anything god worthy. He should have called it after 1999. would have been perfect.
OB started the battle with the school over money. No, i haven’t seen an NFL coaches office nor does it matter since they draft people. You ever see Belichick recruiting 16 year old kids?
My bad, my friend. I posted another analysis in another string comparing just years 5 thru 8 of each coaches tenure. Mixed up my posts. Aside from the comparison. I had forgotten that Joe had 3 undefeated seasons in his 1st 8 years. Pretty amazing. From 1969 thru the 90s was a special time in Penn State football. When I think of all the great games and bowl games.
Yep after 99 is where he even admitted he got lazy. That should have been the clue. Glad he bounced back from the dark years though.
Exactly. MRob did a great job masking the deficiencies on the OL. But the bottom like is we haven't had that great OL since the mid 90s when the likes of Hartings and Rivera anchored it. We've always had one guy, maybe two that were all-B1G or All-American, but it's been a long time since we had the kind of cohesion in the OL that we had some quarter century ago.
In the middle of sanctions with cash getting sucked out of the Athletic department, OBriien was battling for major funding? Maybe the football coach's comp should be tied to the program's bottom line, they we'll see how important the toys really are.
O'Brien was there for two years. Somehow I just don't see him doing battle for a fancy office to impress recruits given that appearances were the least of his worries.