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states as Florida and California. Longtime SEC watchers may have been surprised by his success at luring players to a school with no real tradition, modest facilities and more-stringent academic standards than everyone else in the league. But Franklin had gotten results everywhere he'd been previously, especially at Maryland, where he doggedly pursued players from Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County. In four of his eight seasons as an assistant with the Terrapins, Franklin was named a top-25 recruiter by Rivals.com. At Penn State, he'll have more resources at his disposal than he did at any of his previous stops. "This school has everything that young men are looking for, Franklin " said. "It has everything that families are looking for. That's going to be our plan, and I'm calling all the high school coaches. I'm calling all the people in the state who we need to come together like never before. I think with everybody pulling the rope in the same direction, there's no reason over play-calling duties from Friedgen. In 2010, redshirt freshman quarterback Danny O'Brien is named the Atlantic Coast Conference's Rookie of the Year and a first-team Freshman All-American after compiling a pass efficiency rating of 135.2. For the fourth time in his career, Franklin is named a top-25 recruiter by Rivals.com. DEC. 17, 2010 Eager to coach in the Southeastern Conference, Franklin accepts an offer to become Vanderbilt's head coach. He takes over a Commodores program that had won only 12 SEC games and gone 29-66 overall in eight seasons under Bobby Johnson and went 2-10 in 2010 under Robbie Caldwell. Despite the team's poor record, Franklin hails its potential at his introductory news conference. "It was obvious to me right away that this place could be something really special," he says. why we can't take this program where everybody wants it to be." Prior to his hiring, that rope was being pulled in multiple directions, often at the same time. Some argued that the school should hire Miami's Al Golden, a former Penn State player and assistant coach with family connections in Centre County. Others favored Mike Munchak, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who played under Joe Paterno in the early 1980s and reportedly had worked up a detailed plan to address the one big hole in his resume: his complete inexperience as a recruiter. Either one of those choices would have left Penn State with an experienced hand at the rudder and would have appeased that faction of fans, alums and lettermen who have maintained ever since Paterno's dismissal that candidates for the school's head coaching position should come from within "the family. " But in the end, the university eschewed those choices. It aimed high and got its man. But in so doing, it planted a question in some minds: Will it be able to keep him? Franklin has moved around a lot to this point in his career, even by the standards of a nomadic profession. Since 1999, he has worked at six schools and has never been at any school longer than five seasons at a time. Even as Penn State was pursuing Franklin, his name was being linked to various NFL jobs, and at one point there were reports that he planned to interview with the Washington Redskins. O'Brien's abrupt departure had given rise to speculation that Penn State would seek stability by hiring someone like Golden who would likely have viewed Penn State as a final destination, or by promoting longtime assistant Larry Johnson, who was interviewed for the position and made it clear he wanted the job. Franklin's hiring has raised concerns that Penn State may find itself in the same spot a few years from now, despite a buyout clause that would require him to pay the university $5 million if he were to leave following either of his first two seasons, $2.5 million 2011-13 Franklin guides the Commodores to a 24-15 record in three seasons, including a 2-1 mark in bowl games. It's the first time in the history of the program, which dates back to 1890, that the team receives bowl invitations in consecutive seasons. The Commodores win nine games in each of Franklin's last two seasons, the first back-to-back ninewin seasons in school history. They win 16 of his final 20 games, a record surpassed by only one SEC team during that span: Alabama. In Franklin's last game as head coach, Vanderbilt squanders a 24-point lead but bounces back to defeat Houston, 41-24, in the BVBA Compass Bowl. JAN. 11, 2014 Franklin is named the 16th head coach in Penn State football history, replacing Bill O'Brien, with whom he served on Maryland's staff in 2003 and '04. PennStatesNews

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