Blue White Illustrated

James Franklin is getting set for his eighth season as the head football coach at Penn State, and that in itself is an ac- complishment. While the program be- came known for the longevity and stability of its coaching staff under Joe Paterno, only four of Franklin's predeces- sors – Hugo Bezdek, Bob Hig- gins, Rip Engle and Paterno – even had an eighth season at the school. The other 11 lasted between one and five seasons, with Franklin's immediate predecessor, Bill O'Brien, sticking around for only two years before heading to the Houston Texans. Franklin is coming off only his second losing season as a head coach and his first with the Nittany Lions. But the cir- cumstances surrounding the team's 4-5 finish were highly unusual, as the COVID problems that every school in the coun- try had to cope with were compounded at Penn State by the loss of several key players to in- juries and the decision by the team's best player, All- America linebacker Micah Parsons, to sit out in order to prepare for the NFL Draft. So, where do the Nittany Lions go from here now that the pandemic appears to be waning and the college football world finds itself looking ahead to what figures to be a much more conventional 2021 season? BWI's Nate Bauer recently had an opportunity to talk with Franklin about the program's future. Here's what he had to say: BWI Were there any unintended benefits to everything that happened last year? FRANKLIN The way I've been talking about it and looking at it is, I think a lot of people are talking about how they can't wait to get back to normal. And what we've talked about is, there should be, and there were, things that we learned from going through that. So NEWS & NOTES READY TO ROLL Franklin has compiled a 60- 28 record dur- ing his seven seasons with the Nittany Lions. Photo by Mark Selders/ Penn State Ath- letics I N T E R V I E W J A M E S F R A N K L I N

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