Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/478201
P R E V I E W of them, and I think that was the ra- tionale. "The 5ip side is you still have a fan base and you still have an administration that still wants you to go and schedule an exciting game from another confer- ence, from another part of the country. Well, I don't know if that necessarily makes sense when you have nine confer- ence games and no I-AAs. "The best thing that you can do is get to your conference championship game and win it. That's the best thing you can do. I think that makes sense from every- thing I've seen." ON STARGAZING Not that this is par- ticularly earth-shattering coming from Franklin, but he talked at length about the star ratings in recruiting and how they do or don't impact his sta6's pur- suit of a prospect. "I think recruiting rankings are impor- tant," he said. "They're not the end-all, be-all, but they're important. I think they're important for a lot of di6erent reasons. I think a lot of the rankings are based on a number of people who have evaluated the player and think he's good. Most of the higher-ranked players have a lot of o6ers. Well, you have a tendency to be right more o7en if you like a kid and 50 other people like him as well. That's a system of checks and balances. "So I think it's important from that perspective, but I do think [you need] the ability to make decisions based on the information you have, and it has nothing to do with the rankings. If the rankings coincide with how you feel, wonderful. And that's where you may have a kid who came to your camp who didn't go to any of the Rivals or 247 or Nike or whatever it may be camp, or Un- der Armour. And you know this kid is a 4ve-star player, and you're going to take him. I think those things are really im- portant. "They're also important – let's be honest – from a perception standpoint. It's amazing. You get one 4ve-star kid committed to you or a four-star kid committed to you, and other guys want to go and play with him. There starts to [develop] a little bit of momentum with that. It keeps your fan base excited. It could have a spike in season ticket sales in the o6-season. "So there are so many things that go into it, but ultimately what you have to do is what is in the best interest of your team and your institution. I was reading an article this morning on the plane ride over about teams that year-in and year- out outperform their recruiting classes. I think Bill Snyder and Kansas State is probably the best example all-time of that. So you'd like to have a combination of those things. You'd like to do a great job of developing and performance, but also recruiting, because we all know good players help." ■