James Franklin issues public call for Penn State NIL support

Just days after the Blue-White Game, last month, Penn State football launched a new fundraising campaign called “Retain the Roar.” A formal attempt to boost the collective’s coffers for the football program by $500,000, pledges of $50,000 by former Penn State linebacker Brad Bars and another $25,000 from Rob Riva were committed.

Now closing in on $140,000 toward its overall goal, the Nittany Lions added another voice to the effort.

Releasing a video post via the social media channels of State Media, Penn State head coach James Franklin issued a call for support of the campaign to all Nittany Lion fans. The nearly one minute video addresses the “Penn State family” and makes plain the program’s needs for NIL and the stakes involved.

“Our goal is to compete for championships while doing it the right way,” said Franklin. “But having an elite NIL program is critical to this mission. A strong NIL program is a foundational component of building and maintaining an elite roster of players that will ensure our program is competitive in today’s college football.

“Our staff has done an amazing job of bringing in high-level players that uphold the standard of wearing the blue and white. Now we must ensure we do everything we can to guarantee our roster is the best it possibly can be for this upcoming season.”

James Franklin describes NIL ‘crossroads’

Answering questions for Blue-White Illustrated last May, Franklin made some of his most public comments of his tenure as to the impact of NIL on the program.

Describing it as a “crossroads” with NIL, the changing industry, and Penn State’s “resistant” response to those changes, put the Nittany Lions in something of a bind. Instead, needing to gather momentum for a unified message of support from within the walls of the Lasch Building into the athletic department as a whole, Franklin expressed a desire to make progress as a program.

“If it’s just the coaches out pounding the drum, it’s gonna be difficult to get done. That’s where, when the AD is pounding the same drum as the coaches, whether it’s for facilities or whether it’s NIL, I think more people are open to listening because they’re hearing it from multiple sources. So that’s just the reality,” said Franklin. “If you say, what do we need to do to stay at this level or higher year in and year out, we’re still behind in that area.

“Across the board, the feedback from the players is NIL, that we’re behind in NIL. And what people don’t understand is, they have friends, and sometimes family members. We have players on our team that have brothers playing college football at other schools. So it’s not a friend telling me a story. It’s a family member living it. So that is really valuable information for me to take back to the administration, to get to the collectives, to educate our own staff. It’s one thing for my coaches to hear stories on the road, to talk to other buddies and other programs.”

Offseason Penn State NIL push

Franklin has been at the forefront of a host of recent events sponsored by Happy Valley United, the collective supporting the program’s NIL efforts. Beginning with an inaugural golf tournament in the Harrisburg area late last month, Franklin has worked to deliver a message to Penn State fans of the impact NIL plays in the program’s success.

“James rode around and he shook hands with almost everybody and thanked them. He gave two talks, one before and one after, about the importance of NIL and took questions in terms of who we’re competing with and who we all know we want to beat, and how that connects to dollars raised to wins on the field,” said Jen Ferrang, Happy Valley United General Manager for Development and Corporate Partnerships. “There are teams that we need to beat, and the changing schedule is going to make that more difficult. And therefore, we have to match what we’re doing from an NIL perspective to meet the same expectations on the field.

“That’s kind of his theme right now. And I think that really resonates with everybody, because even the naysayers that want to win who are thinking he isn’t doing a good job (understand the importance of NIL.)”

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