but their are 2 common denominators to this , CJF is only one of them. You figure out the other.
The CJF common denominator is obvious. Rutgers with Ciarrocca and Youngstown State with Yurcich are both scoring points. Rutgers is scoring more than they have in over a decade. I'm not sure what is the second. In my opinion it is irrelevant.
In being critical of Franklin, one has to look at who he is and how that feeds into his strengths and weaknesses. My assessment of him is that from an intellectual standpoint, he is not stupid, but he does lack that esoteric quality that makes him an effective game manager in critical situations, particularly big games.
He is someone who has been studious with respect to his craft and has worked his tail off to get to the position he currently holds. This is reflected in the program from an organizational standpoint. He can be criticized for big game failures, but what he does do is he run a very impressive program from an organizational standpoint. This results in top shelf development of the athletes as demonstrated by combine results and the draft. Penn State has done better at this then what the historical recruiting results would show. The recruiting has been very good, and recruits and their families seem to respond to him favorably. Some high-level recruits were probably lost due to the big game records which has resulted in recruiting being only very good and not exceptional.
His NFL experience shows up in a good way in that he excels at evaluating high school talent and he knows what needs to be done in order for them to reach their full athletic potential. The negative is that he approaches game planning and game management like he is coaching an NFL team. This shows up in his weekly press conference where he immediately talks about turnovers, field position, penalties and time of possession. While the NFL and NCAA are playing the same game, there are differences in the execution of game plans. For clarification, I am not saying that the parameters he references are not important, his fear of being on the wrong side of them is what seemingly handcuffs the offense from being more open. This results in the use of gimmicks to generate explosive plays which too often ends in what he is trying to avoid being realized.
The speed of the game is different and the windows of opportunity in the college game are larger than in the NFL. When he speaks about staying on schedule, it is more critical in the NFL with the smaller opportunity windows due to the speed of the game. In college, the primary objective is to score points. A case in point is the 1994 PSU team which had an average time of under 2 minutes per scoring drive. That team was never on schedule. It is also why the offense looks boring as noted by T Frank on a recent podcast.
While CJF delegates play calling to the coordinators, I would hypothesize that he puts handcuffs on them due to his need to "stay on schedule". He looks for coordinators to add "special plays" to add spice to an otherwise bland and predictable offense.
After the 2nd Oregon touchdown, the offense opened up, and it looked completely different than what we saw in the first three quarters. The TV camera panned on CJF after Oregon went up by 14 and he had a look of resignation on his face. After watching the PSU offensive resurgence, it made me wonder if he had completely deferred to the OC to do whatever he thinks in order to get a score.
With respect to Drew, he does have weakness in recognition. His accuracy has been inconsistent. Is this a coaching / development issue, or is it related to how the offense is game planned and when adjustments are made when the game plan goes off the tracks? Or is it an issue of he doesn't have "IT". I can only guess.
What stood out to me on the final play was not only the safety was following Drew's eyes. the whole secondary had shifted to the right side of the field. The wide receiver on the left side had one on one coverage on nearly 2/3 of the field. A top cornerback would have trouble covering an average wide receiver all over the amount of the field available.
As far as CJF is considered, at this point of his career one could categorize him as having a very high floor with a ceiling that is only a couple of feet above the floor. We will most likely continue to see what transpired on Saturday again and again unless he rethinks his approach to game management and proves me wrong with regard to critical game management. Less analytics and more gut feel (if he even has that capability).
