What Coaching at Penn State Means to James Franklin

Before last year's Fiesta Bowl, Boise State coach Spencer Danielson made James Franklin sound like a Boomer.

"I have followed his journey for a long time," the 36-year-old Danielson said of Penn State's football coach.

A long time .

For the 53-year-old coach, it has been.

Franklin enters his 12th season at Penn State, and 15th as a head coach, with perhaps the best team of his career.

After the Nittany Lions' College Football Playoff run ended in the Orange Bowl , Franklin set about constructing a team capable of winning the national championship this season.

Which comes at a price.

In a recent interview, Franklin discussed those opportunities, their costs and the balancing act they require.

Franklin also detailed what still drives him to coach at Penn State and what still drives him crazy about coaching at Penn State.

This interview has been edited lightly for clarity and length.

Question: What was the week after the Orange Bowl like for you? Did you give yourself a chance to process the game or decompress from it? James Franklin: It's hard for me to remember specifically, but I think we were right in the heat of recruiting then, so I don't think we had an opportunity.

I want to say when we landed [from Miami], we may have had a recruit here waiting for us on an official visit.

So between official visitors, going to see commits, trying to finish the class out, those types of things, I don't think so.

I think we've been ripping and running pretty much ever since.

Question: Was that a good thing? A bad thing? Franklin: I wouldn't say necessarily either.

It's just the nature of the calendar that we've been living under for however many years.

So it's just kind of how we operate.

You move on to the next task.

Obviously you have little pieces of time over the last couple weeks to months to work through it and watch the tape and have discussions and those types of things.

But it's not like you had two or three days or a week to process it.

That didnt happen.

Question: How did last season impact the way you view your core values? In other words, how did it affect your positive attitude, your work ethic, your competitive drive, your willingness to sacrifice? Franklin: I think it does in both directions.

What I mean by that is, it reinforces that we're on the right path and doing some really, really good things, but obviously there's still room for growth, and there's still room for corrections, and there's still two more steps that we need to be able to take.

So I think it does both.

It motivates you that youve got to spend time figuring out, "How can we take the next step?" You have a ton of different discussions with the staff, players and administration.

But I think it also reinforces that we've been one of the more consistent programs in college football.

Question: One of your core values is the willingness to sacrifice.

What do you ask your players, coaches and staff to sacrifice to make Penn State the top college football program in the country? And then what do you sacrifice? Franklin: [Center] Nick Dawkins had a really interesting perspective about that.

He spoke to the team at one point about sacrifice, and I think sacrifice is looked at, in some ways, with maybe a negative connotation.

And really it's more about prioritizing, right? I think all of us waste time in our day, so you're really just trying to strategically place time and resources on the things that you value the most.

So for me, obviously, it's time.

It's time away from friends.

I have a small core group of friends, and that list is getting smaller by the day and by the year.

I have a small family, so that is another area that I sacrifice time with them.

Some of my family understand, and some of my family don't.

And when I talk about family, Im talking about extended family.

But it's a constant battle to be able to find time to make sure that the people that I care the most about know that I'm going to go out of my way and find ways to spend time with them that I normally can't or don't.

Like yesterday, I jumped in the car and went [to a daughters school], and we went out for lunch and went and got ice cream and just kind of acted like normal people walking around having an ice cream cone, which was great.

We don't get to do that enough.

You know, me and my wife [Fumi] are pretty much homebodies.

We've lived all over the country in a ton of different places, so being homebodies kind of helps.

You just have to allocate your time and your resources to the things that matter most.

And when you look at it that way, I don't really see sacrifice as a negative.

It's a positive.

It's just being more strategic with your time and resources.

I think it's the same way with the players.

It's funny.

I still get questions from parents and recruits sometimes, or I still get questions from people I meet, and they're like, "So what do you do in the offseason?" And Im like, "When is the offseason? When does that really happen?" And its the same way with the players.

In todays college football, theres not a whole lot of that.

For the players, theyre not only sacrificing time with family and friends but theyre also sacrificing what people would describe as a quote/unquote normal college experience.

RELATED: Happy Valley United, Penn State's NIL collective, looking for clarity as rules change Question: So how are you better coach than you were last year? Franklin: I think a couple things.

I think experience matters.

Going through the playoff experience, not only for me but for the staff and for the team, there's value in that.

Even the freshmen who showed up early and didn't play in the [Orange Bowl] but were in the meetings and traveled with us means that half our recruiting class already experienced what a playoff is like.

So those banked reps and those banked experiences are really valuable.

And then how quickly youve got to turn around.

I mean, you play the Fiesta Bowl and boom, youve got to turn around and be ready for the next round against another really, really good opponent.

Its week after week after week, and it's a grind when you're talking about the longest season in Penn State history.

I think whenever you're going through those things for the first time, there's challenges that come with that.

Now that we've been through it before, there's a ton of value in doing that.

So I think, just from an experience standpoint, Im better.

Im better for that, for sure.

Question: What still drives you to coach at Penn State after 11 years? Franklin: I think at the end of the day, it's the people.

I am very, very committed to the kids.

I still love watching young men grow up and find themselves academically, athletically, socially, spiritually, all of it.

I mentioned Nick Dawkins before.

Its been really cool to watch his evolution at Penn State, from a guy who showed up here and didn't play a whole lot for his first couple years to now being a captain and a confident young man and one of the more seasoned players on our team and one of the better leaders on our team.

That's cool to see his entire journey, and theres a ton of examples like that.

Tyler Warren and Abdul Carter, being able to be there with them through the recruiting process and the NFL Draft, those things still mean a lot to me in watching guys develop and grow.

I also think now, after being here 11 years, having lettermen come back, either to visit or join the staff, that's a cool thing that a lot of coaches don't get to experience or appreciate.

One of the things that I find interesting is, we're a developmental program.

And we had two guys drafted that we recruited, that we developed, that we watched their entire experience, and that all happened at Penn State.

I take a ton of pride in that.

And I'm at the Draft, and I'm watching coaches taking pictures and pounding their chests, and the guy's been on their campus for six months.

I don't want that to come off the wrong way.

I'm not saying that we haven't embraced that part of college football, but I think there's a difference.

Those relationships that are built over time are what I appreciate so much.

The same with the staff and the people on campus and in the community.

Those things mean something to me.

Question: What still drives you crazy about coaching Penn State football after 11 years? Franklin: For me, it's recognizing what we have been able to do here and what we've accomplished and finally being at a point that there's multiple people that are in the foxhole with us fighting the fight at a similar, if not the same, level.

And in my 11 years, I've never had that before.

Looking back at years where we didn't have that, I think a lot of coaches, to be just frank and honest, would have left to find a place that they were going to get the level of support that we have now.

And I had people, Penn State people, telling me to be patient, it was going to happen, it was coming.

Because there have been people hired in leadership positions for very, very different reasons at different points in our history based on challenges that we were trying to overcome at the time.

That recognition, when you look at what we've accomplished here, I don't know if that's always necessarily factored into the discussion.

I think when we first got here, that's all anybody wanted to talk about.

But I think now, it's just kind of brushed off like no big deal.

And it was a very big deal..

This article has been shared from the original article on si, here is the link to the original article.