Apparently his peers believe he is (tied with Willie Taggart): https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/candid-coaches-who-are-the-most-overrated-and-underrated-college-football-coaches/
I don't agree with that assessment. But I do think this statement is fair:
"When [Franklin] got the Penn State job, I thought, 'Man, he's a good marketer.' He did a nice job with that. It'll be interesting without Saquon [Barkley]. He's underrated. He turns a lot of no[-gain] plays into 60-yard touchdowns."
It will be telling to see how Franklin does after losing a once-in-a-generation talent.
Mikes Sanders and Ricky Slade will be great, Barkley is a one in a life time playing but it was James Franklin who got him to penn st. James Franklin is a top 5 coach IMO and I’m judging him on wins and the 2 teams he took over coaching with one hand tied behind his back and he still wins championships! The man is just that dang good. Nice to hear from you mean green lion it’s been a while
This old nonsense again. Somehow 9 wins two years in a row at Vandy (something not done in 70 years) and two top ten finishes after crippling sanctions is nothing more than "good marketing".
SMH
Even more absurd than Franklin being on the list is that Ferentz is on it too.
It's funny when you look at the quotes:
"Underrated is Chris Petersen at Washington. There's a program that, prior to the last five years, had been down for a long, long time, and he's done an unbelievable job" - Yeah, Washington was 9-4 and ranked #25 the year before he took over.
"[Jeff Brohm and Paul Chryst] I've always said, 'Show me a coach that wins at Alabama and Clemson, I'll show you a good coach. Show me a coach that wins at Wake Forest, I'll show you a great coach.' It's hard to mess it up at Ohio State and Penn State. It's really hard to win at Iowa State." - Interesting since I'd think Vanderbilt would be considered worse to Wake Forest. So I guess winning at Vandy only qualifies as good marketing? Oh, but it's hard to mess it up at Penn State, even when you start with 25 less scholarships than everyone else.
"James Franklin. His coaching peers know he is full of it." - Yeah, that Big Ten title and 2 straight 10 win seasons, including a win over that underrated coach Petersen really shows how full of it he is. But I guess it's all due to one running back, must be.
"If you had the No. 1 recruiting class in the country every year [you'd win like Nick Saban]. He shows up at every single game with a better roster than the teams he 's playing. … If you count cheating and getting the best players in the country as part of running a program, he's the best in the country. It's like saying an NFL coach is the best coach in the league if he gets 25 first-round picks every year." - It's called being a college coach dimwit, recruiting is part of the game unless you forgot.
Just seems there are a lot of jealous people out there. My guess is the guy who called Franklin "full of it" is some coach down south who thinks he ran away from the SEC. As Dan Wolken of USA Today tweeted: "the jealousy of James Franklin is palpable. If you’re a coach who thinks he’s overrated, you’re probably not good at your job." ROTFLMAO
Great post Roam
Well said Roam!
The guy knows that the fastest way to achieve his click goal is to agitate at least one of the largest alumni/fanbases.
Coaches who know how to recruit usually win games/championships. Recruiting and winning go hand in hand and they make it look easy. Sort of reminds of Efren Reyes. Arguably the best pool player to ever hold a cue. He knew how to play position, setting up his next shots look easy.
I've also heard the line: "He's not that good of coach, he just has really good assistants working under him." I always thought identifying and hiring quality assistants was part of the job. Letting them do there job is also important.
I heard the greatest Joe Paterno say people give him to much credit for winning and then he said you need to look at my assistant coaches.
If David Jones article on this is correct. Only 5 coaches actually voted for this.
This is a very interesting story to comment on - the wording is just click bait at best. Now, being a successful Big Time College football coach requires many skills. The greatest X's & O's guy without organizational skills will not build a championship calibre team. I think many of us agree that Franklin may not be a "10" when it comes to the X's and O's - but when you put all the necessary skill sets together in a coach, or CEO as some like to use, you will have success. Relationship building, personality, recruiting, loyalty, management style ... ie Delegating vs Iron Fist, an Eye for talent on players and coaches, all these skills create a winning synergy! So on a rating scale, all of those can be 8's to 10's and will still be successful with a 5-6 X & O guy. We still really don't know how to rate Franklin on the X's & O's - but the big picture - he's doing really well IMO. Lets say for argument sake he is weak on the XO - he may be well aware of that fact and is one reason why he delegates those duties to someone he sees as the best person for the job. Could be he is Einstein with the XO - but with all the other duties he needs to excel in - he again delegates to his assistants - which through experience, makes his assistants better and better.
Enough rambling here, you are catching my gist .... As long as he's in the conversation, it's all good!
It's amazing how Barkley has now become a once in a generation talent who carried Penn State and they have no hopes of winning now that he is gone... Yet... Those same people barked that he wasn't the best back in college football last year and didn't even receive an invite to the Heisman award ceremony... Hmmmm....Somebody has to explain that logic to me...
