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but has never really gone through. It's farther along this time, and I think it's probably going to go through," Franklin said. "If you look at all of the sports in major-college athletics, we have the worst player-to-coach ratio, and it's probably the sport that probably gets the most focus and attention. We have to manage, we have to educate, we have to coach all these kids, so being able to get a number to help with that I think is important." Football Bowl Subdivision programs are currently permitted to have one head coach and nine full-time assistant coaches, along with an additional four graduate assistants. Franklin said there are a couple of dif- ferent schools of thought as to how coaches would use an additional assis- tant. "What I think a lot of people will do is, they will probably go [one of ] two directions," he said. "You could go with the NFL model where you go with a special teams coordinator. Instead of having a special teams coordinator who coaches a position and coordinates special teams, you have a special teams coordinator and that's his main re- sponsibility. He may help out with an- other position, but that's his main responsibility. "Or, the other thing you always do – like anything in life – you just go best available. So you may say, my model is to go with a special teams coordinator, but Coach X is available and wants to come and he's just so experienced and so valuable that you go with that guy as well. There are two different mod- els. "I'm probably leaning more toward a special teams coordinator who would help out on defense, because typically with nine coaches, you have /ve on of- fense and four on defense [with] one of those o0ensive coaches splitting time as a special teams coordinator. Putting a special teams coordinator on the defen- sive side of the ball as well, those guys would be like co-coordinators and would even out your coaches /ve and /ve." –NATE BAUER T H E M O N T H I N . . . While the offense showed [against Iowa] that Joe Moorhead is proving to be an outstanding hire as its coordinator – don't be surprised if people come calling for him as a head coach sooner rather than later – Brent Pry's defense was nearly as good. When the outcome was being shaped, the defense stuffed the Hawkeyes three straight times in short-yardage situations – against an Iowa team that has been built around its offensive line for many years under Kirk Ferentz. NEIL RUDEL ALTOONA MIRROR You can't run this offense in the NFL. It doesn't particularly train quarterbacks or backfield stars how to play in the pros. And you'll never be able to build a Cra- dle of QBs with it. It's a college offense. But right now, Penn State has the zone- read scheme humming with about as high an RPM level as it's ever been. It's like trying to pick which dragster to catch when you're at a dead stop at the staging line in a Ford Taurus. Facing the wrong way. And the Iowa Hawkeyes can tell you, when you have a slippery little QB and an elite running back running it, it is hard to deal with. DAVID JONES PENNLIVE.COM The question now is where things go from here. It's hard to imagine a Penn State team under Franklin looking di0erent than it has the past few games, and in that sense Penn State has arrived at its destination with Franklin. The work as it per- tains to building the structure itself has been completed. Now it's a matter of sustaining and upgrading. A le1 tackle here, a linebacker there, but Penn State has seemingly broken free of simply surviving and has gotten back to playing. Perhaps then that means Penn State football is back. Maybe not back to where it wants to be just yet, but back to a place where the playing /eld is once again even and once again easier to navigate. BEN JONES STATECOLLEGE.COM Barkley – who once voluntarily gave up a gold track medal in high school – has often reiterated that he's not interested in big stats or small statues. He likes to let his play do the talking. And, lately, it's loudly stated that he belongs in the discus- sion surrounding the Heisman Trophy. JOSH MOYER ESPN.COM O P I N I O N S !

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