Nor should he. Why would he throw away leverage to satisfy a fan's desire for coach loyalty? He has to negotiate for his pay and leverage is the key.
More thoughs on Franklin
- Thread starter Marylovesthelions
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Can’t blame him. But Penn State was being run by amateurs to sign him to a 10 year extension.
In the real world where some accountability still exists, Franklin would have been put on performance probation - not extended after the last two years.
Sandy and Barren were incomprehensibly incompetent. They should have both been fired long ago.
Instead, they were allowed Tom retire and building are being named after them.
Says a lot about the “new” Penn State. Do you think academic standing free-fall and the current state of Penn State Football were coincidences?
Time for a change!
Perhaps. Time will tell with the decision-making at the top. Right now there can easily be debate about the wisdom of signing Franklin long term. The OP lays the blame at Franklin's feet which is moronic.
Moronic is a cheap word. Pointing out greed during Franklin's failure is anything but moronic? I stand by my statement that Harnaugh is of much better character than Franklin.
Pointing out that Franklin was driven solely by his own salary increase and was willing to expose to recruits and alumni that he was for sale to the highest bidder with no regard to the program whatsoever is NOT moronic.
No one begrudges anyone making what they can, but to walk around the workplace with a sign saying, "I wrote the code to the most critical algorithm, no one else understands it, and I want paid $$$" is not good.
It's not "greed" to ask for a pay raise. Justifying it and paying it is in the hands of the employer. Welcome to the world where we negotiate over employment contracts. If you have a beef it's with management at PSU. Now if you think Franklin is not earning his keep then again your beef is with management as they also negotiated the buy out.
Seriously, poor PSU? They can't find anyone else to coach the program and were held hostage by Franklin? Please. The parties at the negotiating table both have plenty of leverage, unless you feel the PSU job is so unattractive that we are stuck with whatever Franklin wants. You can criticize his demeanor and attitude all you want. That does not mean crap when the two sides sit down and negotiate over terms. Nobody held a gun to Sandy's head.
Franklin had leverage. There were reports he was high on the USC list. Was he first? Who knows. But PSU always retained the right to say no in negotiations. They chose to grant James' wishes. That's not on Franklin. To call him out now after a loss as being greedy and unworthy is just a temper tantrum. As any employer knows, not everyone lives up to the contract terms you agreed to. But the fact remains that the terms were agreed to. If Franklin continues to under-perform his contract instead of attacking the man's character maybe consider whether the employer is, or has, prepared for the potential for under-performance.
You chose to attack his character because he successfully negotiated a contract with his employer. And you do this based upon what you read on college message boards. Sorry to be blunt but that's not right. PSU is on equal footing with James in contract negotiations. If he under-performs then direct your personal attacks at those who can do something about it.
Harbaugh leveraged Michigan with a return to the NFL to get the contract extension he wanted. As soon as he wasn't offered the job, he signed his Michigan deal and said "oh, I'm not going back."
Then before the season, he says it still eats at him to not have won the big one.
I'm failing to see where character is better displayed. Coaching prowess, yes.
Franklin's star fell big-time after the Illinois game. Following that debacle, the USC and LSU buzz died off.
I've always been a big fan of Franklin -- (less so after the last couple years) -- but I think last season's contract drama, which was not the first time he's played the will-he-or-won't-he game with the school's administration, was a bad look for the guy and, perhaps more importantly, a major distraction for the team. It lost him a lot of good will and room for error in the minds of many people who were once firmly in his corner. If the team lays an egg this Saturday, things are going to get ugly.
LMAOROFL an ethical person's loyalty would not allow them to ask for a raise during abject failure. If anything is moronic it is that our BOT approved his new contract.
Has Rhule been more successful than Franklin? Tell me why he is a better coach?
Rhule's career record as a head coach is 58-70. (47-43 in college) (11-27 in pros)
I mean his Owls pounded us in 2015, almost beat our 2016 team. At Temple. Never seen someone get as outcoached as Franklin in that 2015 game.
Agree. If Franklin goes, we need another BOB. This program lacks toughness and Ieadership. Much of BOB's success was due to outstanding team leadership. We are!
Didn't Harbaugh take a significant chunk of money out of his own pocket and give it to assistants? I am not familiar with the details, but that is an admirable quality in a man regardless of his position. Also not familiar of Franklin doing anything similar.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Harbaugh, he is just too far on the "strange" scale for my comfort, but he seems to have UM headed in the right direction. Gotta give credit where credit is due.
Well pick yourself off of the floor and consider your use of "abject failure". If such was the case, all the more reason to respect what Franklin and his attorneys accomplished in negotiations. Again your vitriol is misplaced. There is nothing unethical about asking for a raise with an employer who retains the right to say "no".
You can be critical of Franklin without impugning his character. By most accounts he runs a clean program, is honest with recruits and staff and advocates for himself with his employer. We can debate team performance and the causes for getting out butts handed to us in AA without attacking the integrity of the man. I would submit you know very little about him and his personal dealings.
Mary sees fit to engage in ad hominem attacks because our coach lost a football game. I have my own concerns about his on field track record but stooping to argue he is "greedy" and 'unethical" because he got a good contract is wrong.
Jimmy is/was not good enough to have leverage. Should’ve got a 2 or 3 year extension, with 22 and 23 being prove it years. He’s got the OC he coveted. He has a well known quality DC.
PSU should be a 3 loss team max annually. He should compete with OSU and Michigan. The big 2 are way better than PSU and Jimmy regularly loses to the 2nd tier Big teams. Not good enough, period.
PSU should be a 3 loss team max annually. He should compete with OSU and Michigan. The big 2 are way better than PSU and Jimmy regularly loses to the 2nd tier Big teams. Not good enough, period.
Agreed he is underperforming. I think PSU was possibly swayed by reporting on the USC job and what Michigan State did with their coach. Funny now that many at Michigan State are feeling as we do.
Mel Tucker is a classic example, but far from the only one, of a one-year wonder cashing in a huge contract and then flopping.
Franklin is not in Tucker's boat. Unlike Tucker, Franklin has/had a long record of success if not brilliance.
Still, I think the lucrative and lengthy contract extension was a big mistake on Penn State's part. Some red flags regarding the performance of his team were ignored or rationalized.
But all is not lost. There's time to right the ship this year, but I don't think Franklin can afford another fiasco either against Minnesota or anyone else on the schedule.
I remember something along those lines. But let's not kid ourselves here. "Ultra rich coach gives rich assistant coaches part of his pay" isn't exactly some great character thing. While very selfless and nice, it's not like he paid off the mortgage for somebody who actually needed it.
But maybe I'm just wrong.
You just did this past Saturday; Harbaugh and staff took Franklin and staff to school all afternoon, and there were no adjustments made, certainly not by the defense. Our offense stinks due to a lousy line, no real deep threat, and an OC that apparently never heard of throwing to a back or TE.
Face it - we have a coming staff that other teams just abuse- look what CMU did. They don’t have one player that would start for us, and yet they went toe-to-toe with us, and we won somewhat because they had 2 TDS called back on penalties. Their coaching staff out coached ours all game. UM had the talent to destroy us due to their coaching staff schooling ours.
To deny this is to live in a fantasy world.
I still think Rhule out coached us more in 2015 than Michigan just did. We had 1000 times more talent than Temple and still got smoked. But yes we got outcoached badly by Mich.
The fact Brenton Strange wasn't scripted into a few play action roll out underneath routes in the first 2-3 series is just crazy. Seriously, its crazy to think a professional coach in that situation, the opponent, the setting and based on the season to that point did not have that in the plan. It really lowered my confidence in Yurcich, whose raw offensive stats and ranks are downright terrible to this point a season and a half in.
If you are going to start listing instances where Franklin has been outcoached it will take a while - that is a long list.
This is an opinion board. My opinion is that a person who has an unsuccessful year and asks for a raise while already making a fortune is of low character. His 1st task have been improving the team.
I would say you are wrong.
"Harbaugh donated a total of $1.5 million to 210 Michigan Athletic Dept. employees, according to a report by Steve Berkowitz of USA Today. The employees that received the money were head coaches, assistant coaches, administrators, facilities staff, and operations staff, according to Berkowitz. Each person received anywhere from $935 to nearly $133,000."
Colin Cowherd was stating for many weeks that Franklin was the choice of USC. Cowherd has an "in" at USC so the rumor was given credence. It's just ridiculous to think that coaches don't leverage their marketability to get things they want, be it money, assistants or facilities. To call it greed and unethical is misplaced. Whether James is worth it all is for PSU to decide. But it is no character flaw to seek more for yourself and your program, especially if your employer chooses to abide.
I'm not going to go into details, but I've had personal encounters with Franklin outside of football, and the guy is a jerk, so yes his character is flawed. Many of you won't want to believe it, but it's the truth.
I followed Trojans Wire for a period of weeks surrounding the whole drama. Early on, Franklin was a leading contender, seemingly in the top three for the job. Then came Iowa...and Illinois...and the buzz died. Illinois in particular was the killer. USC was looking for a hire to move the needle, and the guy whose players didn't show up against a bad Illinois team was not it.
I didn't use the word "greed" or "unethical." Nor do I begrudge anyone their right to use whatever leverage they have to get a better deal for themselves. But you can only take that so far. My point, which your comment doesn't rebut, is that he may have gone to the well once too often with the will-he-or-won't-he kabuki dance.
That whole thing last year ended up being a bad look for him and a major distraction for the team, which in turn cost him a lot of good will among people who'd been in his corner. This in turn has greatly reduced his room for error. Those are just hard facts to explain why Saturday's game is so big.
Saturday is a game we should win with emotion.
But I agree. If things turn south - especially early - it will be an ugly, embarrassing scene for both Franklin and PSU…you can feel the natives ready to explode…and not in a good way.
I have been a Franklin supporter over the years. However, he went back to the BOT twice to leverage interest from other schools to get big raises. In my opinion, that also raises expectations on him as a head coach. He is 9 years in now and if we are developing an elite program, games like Saturday should not happen. The talent discrepancy is not that big. It looked like players were not prepared. Michigan outschemed us.
Last year it was the Illinois game. In 2017 & 2018 we had losses to MSU when we had poor game plans, but superior talent.
