As Penn State Rolls Yet Again Under Franklin, What If Penn State Already Is His USC?

James Franklin once told me he has never seen his paychecks. He, apparently, takes money out of the bank to use as petty cash and that marks more or less the extent of it. As a fellow member of the tribe of direct deposits, this might be the closest financial similarity we will ever share.

He also once mentioned that coaches getting into the profession for the money bothers him.

However accurate either of these statements are — or how much they can truly inform what we know about Franklin’s relationship with money and continuing to be very wealthy — is, at best, entirely a guess.

But as Franklin stormed on the field on Saturday night following the Nittany Lions’ win over Auburn with emotions flowing off his sleeve, he did so one step closer to an inflection point in Penn State football’s history. Because when the dust settles, USC will almost certainty call Franklin during its upcoming coaching search, and given the opportunity to make such a decision he will have to decide between Southern California or Central Pennsylvania.

If he opts to stay in State College, one gets the feeling he may not leave for quite some time.

Which makes the reasons why Franklin would leave — and the assumption that he wants to in the first place — all the more interesting.

Of course there is the money. Franklin already has that more than most in the profession, but USC is a prideful program full of prideful boosters looking to turn USC into the program it once was. Even California’s steep income tax compared to Pennsylvania’s might not be enough to keep the school from coughing up the money to give Franklin an actual take-home raise.

There is the winning. USC being positioned in the PAC-12 makes for a much more palatable and Ohio-State-absent path to the postseason. A Los Angeles region stocked full of talent would make for easy pickings among Franklin’s staff. It’s hard to imagine Franklin taking the USC job and struggling to find the talent to match – even if his West Coast ties are largely a product of time spent during a passing single season at Washington State.

There is the culture. Franklin has for better or worse has never given off “I’ll meet you at Grange Fair” kind of vibes, but given the region’s enthusiasm for winning football, where exactly Franklin eats his fried carnival food matters far less to people than where he gets his quarterbacks. It’s hard to deny Franklin’s city-heavy past lends itself well to him and his family calling LA home, but how often do coaches leave the football building anyway? And how much does the city you live in matter when you have homes in multiple travel destination states? (Franklin has at least two, one in Florida and another in Colorado.)

But then again, with every city — much like with every State College — comes its pros and cons.

“The fact that we’ve lived in so many places and moved so many times — I think that the normal definition of home for you and for most people is very different,” Franklin said this summer. “Because you just had to adapt and adjust so many times in so many different regions of the country.

“I’ve been able to go to Idaho State and really find things that I liked about my experience. I feel like I can kind of adapt anywhere. But to be able to come back to the state of Pennsylvania where I have so much history and connections — so there’s a lot of that. And I think there’s comfort. I do think there’s aspects that feel like home because pretty much throughout the entire state I can pick up the phone and call somebody that can give me perspective on something or is going to be supportive of our program.

“For some of our staff, it was hard leaving Nashville with the music and the food. For me and my wife, we are pretty much homebodies anyway and that’s never been a driving force for me. You know, it’s been about being somewhere that cares about football and where you can be honest and transparent with people that you hire and recruit. Literally you can sell it all here for our family. The fact that if I need to shoot home or my wife needs to shoot over here or I need to go by school for the girls and have lunch with them, you can do that. Wherever you’re at Maryland, you know, that could be anywhere between 45 minutes, an hour and 20 minutes based on traffic, so it allows you to be the dad or the father, the husband, that you want to be.

“So I guess what I’m saying is, yes I would describe it as it feels like home. But I would also say that for the reader, I just think that definition is different.”

And now to consider the other side of the coin.

Franklin has probably been at Penn State longer than some fans ever expected. His wide grin and sales pitch demeanor early in his tenure never seemed to be the hallmarks of a man who was going to stick around for much longer than he needed to.

But then Penn State won, and then it kept winning. It won a Big Ten title, probably getting robbed of a playoff spot in the process. The Nittany Lions are 18-7 over the last three years with five of those losses coming during a strange COVID-19 season. Penn State seems poised once again to make at least a tentative playoff conversation run in 2021 and an absolutely loaded 2022 recruiting class does little to slow down that momentum.

Add in the likes of defensive coordinator Brent Pry and so-far-worth-his-money offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich and the foundation is there. Ongoing Lasch Building renovations are keeping Penn State at least in the ballpark of comparative programs on the facilities front and one would be hard pressed to find a more passionate fanbase. There are things to improve, but Penn State’s structure is as steady as they come.

And as it pertains to winning? If an expanded playoffs means Penn State could make the postseason without the requisite requirement of beating Ohio State in the regular season, the Nittany Lions would punch plenty of tickets to the dance. And even if USC proved to be a slightly easier path, the Buckeyes and various traditional powers would be waiting in the postseason all the same. Getting to the playoffs might be easier than having to beat Ohio State, but that still means taking care of Oregon and Stanford for the chance to face the Buckeyes anyway. So is that really an advantage?

On the personal front, Franklin will turn 50 on his next birthday meaning that he is slowly but surely headed toward the later stages of his coaching career as his daughters hit the bulk of their schooling and adolescent childhood. A move to USC would not come without a few seasons of hard work simply to get that program to the place that Penn State currently is. If winning a national title is a mission of utmost importance, burning time just to give it a go somewhere else may not be the answer. This is especially true if one imagines Franklin is going to put together classes comparable to the ones he’s already patching together at Penn State.

Of course the unknowable in all of this is what Franklin wants and what he thinks of as his head hits the pillow. If he wants to get paid more to live in LA and build a historic program back into national contention then there is nothing Penn State can do about it.

But perhaps he means what he says. Maybe when he talks about Penn State being a dream job and that as long as the powers at be keep his ambitions within reach it still is that dream job. Maybe when he says on a near annual basis that he doesn’t want to leave… that he really doesn’t.

It is a mistake to take coaches at their word because there are far many instances in which doing so has proven foolish.

All the same, it seems worthwhile to consider, as he continues in his eighth season at Penn State, that maybe Penn State already is James Franklin’s USC.

But like all things speculative, check back when we have the answer.