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5 takeaways from the Penn State coaches caravan

By Audrey Snyder/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 8 years ago

James Franklin, several of his assistants and numerous Penn State head coaches along with athletic director Sandy Barbour spent long days in their bus as they wrapped up the coaches caravan Thursday evening in the Lehigh Valley. 

During the six day, 12-stop event Franklin met with the media twice a day and fielded pre-screened questions from members of the audience. It’s a grind for all involved as they have to be “on” for every stop and find ways to make it worthwhile. There were a few takeaways from Franklin’s sessions with the media and many stories and blogs to go along with it.  

Here are five takeaways from the 2015 caravan:

1) The year of the Hackenberg question

Whether James Franklin likes the question or not (Hint: He doesn’t) this year will be full of questions about his quarterback’s future. Christian Hackenberg is a projected first-round NFL Draft pick by several outlets and during the first day of the caravan Franklin was asked twice about what will happen in 2016 if Hackenberg would declare early. Franklin said it’s not fair to answer such questions.  

“To have a conversation with you right now about next year’s draft I think is ridiculous,” he said at the second stop on Day 1 in Lancaster. “I also think it’s unfair and I think it’s unrealistic when people talk about guys that are supposed to be this or supposed to be that before they’ve done any real in-depth research on guys. I’ll leave it at that. We’re excited about playing Temple.”

I asked Franklin on the second to last day in New York City how many Hackenberg questions he received from fans. He said he expects there to be many and based off the caravan I think it’s safe to say that will hold true.  

2) Satellite camps

James Franklin and Sandy Barbour both were asked about the Big Ten’s policy that allows them to serve as coaches and guest speakers at football camps throughout the country, and specifically in the heart of the SEC. 

“The opposition doesn’t surprise me,” Barbour said. “You don’t hear the opposition necessarily coming from the conferences that allow it, you hear the opposition coming from the conferences that don’t allow it and particularly the coaches. And we’ll see if it changes one way or another. I think the answer has to be we all can do it or none of us can do it. I think that’s the discourse we’re hearing.”

“From my perspective, it’s legal from an NCAA standpoint. It gives our coaches an opportunity to go out and represent our institution, which benefits the institution and certainly benefits us from a recruiting standpoint and from the standpoint of our football program. What could be wrong with that?”  

Of course this will be a major storyline in all of college football as camp season heats up this summer. Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and his assistants will be making a special visit as “guests” to camp in Pennsylvania on June 7 when they visit Lafayette College. Franklin and the Nittany Lions have camps lined up for at least five different places outside of State College this summer, including one in the greater Atlanta area, one in the Charlotte area and one near Virginia Beach. Last year they hit Florida and Georgia. 

3) Cost of attendance stipend 

James Franklin didn’t shy away from mentioning how he uses Penn State’s high cost of attendance stipend when he’s dealing with recruits. At a Pittsburgh stop Franklin said every prospect asks how much it is.

He said the school’s federal figure, which last year was around $4,700 per full scholarship athlete and is tops in the Big Ten and one of the best in the country, is part of the numbers he shows to recruits, along with Penn State’s graduation rates. 

Much more on cost of attendance and why Franklin can see the other side of the issue with each school having a different figure can be found in my Friday Post-Gazette story

2) Penn State’s scholarship totals

Last year Franklin said several times that it would take three years fro him to have every aspect of the team —from depth across the board to facility upgrades in the Lasch Football Building— to where he wants it. 

Franklin said during the second week of the caravan that he’ll need another two to three years to get the team’s scholarships balanced as they work back from the NCAA sanctions that limited the team’s overall number of scholarship players and impacted several recruiting classes. He said of the 85 scholarships the program is allowed to have come August, which is back to the full allotment following an early lift from the NCAA on the scholarship limitations, he said Penn State is around 81 or 82 scholarship players. The team is still thin in the senior class and balancing out a roster loaded with underclassmen will take time to balance out. 

He also said he’d like to have at least four and ideally five scholarship quarterbacks. Penn State has three. Also, he sees defensive tackle as a position where they need to focus on adding depth following this season. 

Senior cornerback Da’Quan Davis is no longer on the team, which frees up a scholarship. Defensive back Kasey Gaines left the team in March without playing a down in a game which assuming they both had their scholarships last season would have Penn State at 82 scholarships by my count (my full per position scholarship breakdown is here). Will other scholarship upperclassmen who haven’t made significant contributions depart the program before camp in August? We’ll see.  

1) Relationships spill over from every end of the state

Whether Franklin was going up and down and through the hilly neighborhoods of Pittsburgh where we met up with a close childhood friend and visited a park he used to play at, to posed for pictures with his second-grade teacher in Langhorne, Franklin continues having people from all parts of the state in his corner. 

When he addressed various caravan crowds he’d say how relationships are the biggest piece to this program. Whether it was a family member, former teacher or mentor he’s just the “same old James” to them, his one friend told me.  

Franklin said he hopes that will always hold true. 

“The people that really know me say I haven’t changed at all,” Franklin said during the Langhorne stop in his hometown. “I hope that’s true. I think we all change with different responsibilities and different job and families and things like that, but I hope at my core I’m still the same guy, just more mature because I was very immature [as a kid].” 

Audrey Snyder: asnyder@post-gazette.com and Twitter: @audsnyder4