Staff PhotographerKatie Scanlan, left, and her brother Jack of Mountain Top get their picture taken with James Franklin, head football coach at Penn State University, during the Penn State Coaches Caravan’s stop at Penn State Hazleton Tuesday.
Penn State football players in pink jerseys?
Athletic Director Sandy Barbour sounded a hopeful and coaxing note Monday regarding a pending extension for Franklin, who is entering his fourth season as Penn State’s football coach.
With a Big Ten title and Penn State’s first Rose Bowl berth since 2009, before the Sandusky sanctions hit the school, Franklin has become a model which other Nittany Lions sports surely follow. He’s done that in recent years, signing Miles Sanders of Woodland Hills, C.J. Thorpe of Central Catholic and Lamont Wade of Clairton.
“The next thing is that next goal, and there’s nobody in this room that’s achieved that before, so how do we do it?” And if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll realize I buried the lede: after a 2017 draft class where a dozen Wolverines and Spartans got drafted (including one in the top 25), no prospects from either MI school made this list.
“We’ve had, ‘Congratulations. Welcome to the state of Pennsylvania, ‘ ” Barbour said, “and we both know we’ll get to that conversation fairly soon”.
Denise St. Pierre (women’s golf) on the dais.
“I do think there’s a sense of – with the fans, the alumni and the lettermen – that they have taken a deep breath like, ‘Whew, we’re in a good place”.
“We’re in a better place, but I still think we’re looking to create more depth, ” he said.
“I don’t know when they’re doing all that”, he said.
Franklin, who is 25-15 in his first three seasons with the Nittany Lions after spending three years at Vanderbilt, added there is still a lot of work to do with renovating the Lasch Building.
When I say home, that’s Penn State. That’s a far cry from a year ago, when Franklin’s job performance was questioned and his team was again supposed to finish in the middle of the conference pack. “Fans and people can get to the players and the assistant coaches more than ever”. “What do we need to do in terms of support, what do we need to do in terms of my staff, what do we need to do in terms of facilities. So whatever we did last year isn’t good enough this year moving forward, and it’s always going to be that kind of approach”. I think we all realized there is no secret to success.
At this year’s Blue-White Game McSorley looked lost while playing against Penn State’s second-team defense.
Penn State women’s basketball coach Coquese Washington said that James Franklin had given a pep talk to her team before a game late in the season. For roughly a half of an extremely abbreviated game Tommy scored three touchdowns, threw for 216 yards and showed a killer instinct that Penn State quarterbacks seldom possess.
