James Franklin Shows Respect to Penn State, Despite Actions Saying Otherwise

It's not easy building a college football program nowadays, and that's unfortunately something former Penn State head coach James Franklin learned the hard way a year ago. 

There was certainly an expectation that Franklin and Penn State were going to be the best team in America and have their best chance of winning a national title in quite some time after losing in the College Football Playoff semifinals just one season prior. 

Sadly, not everything went as planned, and as a result, Penn State decided to cut ties with the longtime head coach. Franklin took a job at Virginia Tech but didn't exactly forget his ties to Happy Valley, bringing over a lot of personnel, players, and more from State College. 

When speaking recently about why he did that, Franklin admitted it wasn't to take a shot at Penn State or anything, but rather because he wanted to continue building something he had a lot of trust in.

“One of the advantages we had was recruiting guys we already had previous relationships with,” James Franklin told the On The Triple Option podcast when Rob Stone asked what his sales pitch is for the transfer portal.

“When we came here, and a number of Penn State players came with us, I think some people interpreted that as a shot at Penn State. I want to be very clear—that was not the case. I’m very appreciative of my 12 years there, which is unusual in today’s college football. It really came down to this: if you’re going to build something, you want to build it with people you know, trust, and have relationships with.”

Franklin lost an entire staff, whether that be equipment managers, chefs, or anything else; it is tough. Ultimately, he was around Penn State for a long time and had many familiar faces with him. It's not crazy to say that he made the right decision when he decided to bring some of them to Virginia Tech, even if it ruffled some feathers in State College.