Franklin has repeatedly claimed that it's a "family environment", and so this is a conversation that the staff should be having with its "sons".
Penn State head coach James Franklin talks about the family atmosphere at PSU, and he may have embarrassed a family member while doing so.
www.on3.com
“That’s really important to me and I think it’s really important to Penn State, that sense of family and community,” Franklin said.
These athletes are on campus because the coaching staff encouraged them to enroll, allegedly to get an education first, and to play a sport second. They are being "compensated" to be a part of the student body (normal students pay out of pocket for tuition, room, and board), and some feel that they should be held to a higher standard (whether right or wrong). So the coaches do bear some degree of responsibility when this kind of stuff happens, regardless of whether that is fair or not. Any coach from any program can bury their head in the sand and say "Well, can't control 100 kids!", but that is a complete cop out.
I don’t even have anything to do with the football program, but as a rational human being I am mortified and embarrassed about this situation. If it's an aberration, then so be it, but if it becomes a pattern moving forward, then the coaches' responsibility increases exponentially ("Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me").