Again I Find Myself in the Undesirable Position of Having to Defend James Franklin

With Ohio State’s loss, Penn State clinched a spot in the Big 10 title game with a clobbering of Maryland on Saturday night. Up 38 to 7, time running out, and facing 4th and 12 on the Maryland 15, PSU went for it with their backups and scored a touchdown, leading to this exchange after the game:

Maryland’s Mike Locksley was not happy with Penn State’s James Franklin after taking a 44-7 loss at Beaver Stadium. pic.twitter.com/NGl8TrO43k

— Mark Brennan (@MarkXBrennan) December 1, 2024

#PennState HC James Franklin on his postgame interaction with #Maryland HC Mike Locksley.

“My jobs is to put threes and fours in the game, but when the threes and fours get to go in the game, they get to play football. Those guys deserve to play football.”

… pic.twitter.com/i2fg8mOwiZ

— Penn State Nittany Lions | Happy Valley Insider (@PennStateRivals) December 1, 2024

Franklin: “Yeah I get it, right? At the end of the game we throw a touchdown. I get it. But a couple of things I will say. My job is to put the threes and fours in the game. But when the threes and fours get to go in the game, they get to play football. Those guys deserve to play football. Your ones are in the game. You were trying to score. We’re trying to score. On top of that, you’re playing Cover 0. If you don’t want (to get scored on) play Cover 2. So I’m good with it. On top of that, there’s also a change in college football. We are trying to play as long as we can, make the playoffs, and be seeded as high as possible. Scoring as many points, a point differential matters. All of that matters! If you don’t get that, it’s really not my problem. W. 1-0. I’m good with it, anyone who’s not, that’s their problem.”

This is not an issue because Franklin has done this before and is always consistent with it. He puts the backups in and the backups operate like the starters. He’s not out here at the end of the game throwing bombs with Drew Allar. The guy who caught the TD pass, Imhotep’s Tyseer Denmark, is a freshman who had one reception coming into this game. And the guy who tossed him the pass is the second-string QB.

The same exact thing happened last year in the PSU season opener. They were up big on West Virginia, WVU scored with Garrett Greene and went for two, then Penn State came down and Beau Pribula (backup last year as well) ran one in for a score with something like six seconds left. Neal Brown complained about it, but Neal Brown is also a loser and will hopefully be out of a job sooner rather than later.

Could Franklin ask his twos and threes to take a knee and end the game? Yeah, sure. Maybe it’s an asshole move and karma will bite him in the ass at some point. There seems to be a take floating around out there about Franklin running up the score against crappy teams while choking against the big ones. I don’t know. Whatever. At least he has a justification for operating this way. The backups need reps. They aren’t just out there to run it straight up the middle, especially if the other team is still trying. James Franklin is an asshole for many reasons, but this is not one of them.

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