Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/877736
F O O T B A L L Franklin sees contract extension helping reinforce program's stability There was a time not so long ago when Penn State's football program was known as a bastion of stability. Its head coach had been on the job since the 1960s, and his assistants and support staff tended to stay for decades, too. Their collective longevity earned Happy Valley a reputation as a sort of coaching Shangri-La, the kind of place where the resources needed to win championships were in place and the pressures of the outside world could be kept at arm's length. That era came crashing to an end in 2011, and for most of the five seasons that followed, the program seemed to be in a perpetual state of flux. Since the final days of the 2011 season, Penn State has employed two full-time head coaches, two interim head coaches, four offensive coordinators and five defen- sive coordinators. Bill O'Brien left for the NFL after two years, and his successor, James Franklin, was starting to feel some heat himself, as im- patient fans decried the team's back-to- back 7-6 finishes in 2014 and '15. But last season, Franklin led the Nit- tany Lions to a Big Ten championship and their first Rose Bowl appearance in nearly a decade, then followed it up by signing the 12th-ranked recruiting class in the country according to Rivals.com. That taste of suc- cess, coming just after a pe- riod of NCAA-mandated scholarship restrictions, rekindled memories of an ear- lier time when the Nittany NEWS & NOTES NEW DEAL Franklin's contract extends through the 2022 season and will pay him an average of $5.78 million per year. Photo by Steve Manuel |