James Franklin can make history at Penn State

No Black coach has ever won the college football national championship. Let that sink in for a minute: Universities that profit from Black sweat on the field have denied equal opportunity to Black minds on the sidelines. But as the expanded College Football Playoff hastens the end of this discriminatory era, Penn State coach James Franklin is a top contender to achieve one of the last “firsts” in sports.

On Saturday, Franklin’s No. 3 Nittany Lions play the No. 1 Oregon Ducks for the Big Ten championship. In this most unpredictable college football season, it’s an unexpected shot at redemption for Franklin, who was booed off the field Nov. 2 after Penn State lost to Ohio State 20-13 at home. Before the playoffs expanded to 12 teams this year, that kind of loss would have knocked Penn State out of the championship picture.

But “college football has changed,” Franklin said after that devastating loss. “We have an opportunity moving forward to right some wrongs from today.”

When that opportunity begins Saturday, Franklin will be confronting a lot more wrongs than what happened against Ohio State.

Franklin, 52, is on a short list of Black coaches at schools that can regularly compete for a national title. Another is Marcus Freeman at 11-1 Notre Dame, which is ranked right behind Penn State and has recovered well from a shocking loss to Northern Illinois in Week 2. Another is Sherrone Moore at Michigan, which put Penn State in the Big Ten ‘chip by upsetting Ohio State on Nov. 30. The only other Black coach with a visible path to breaking the barrier is Deion Sanders at Colorado or whatever his next stop may be.

Like any smart coach, Franklin isn’t interested in talking about hypothetical championships. At the beginning of this season, as I visited various campuses talking to Black coaches, Franklin politely declined my interview request. His response was not unlike what I heard from Moore or Freeman – they are focused on the week-to-week pressure cooker that is the top echelon of college football. 

“All we have to do is focus on playing Maryland this week,” Franklin said before Penn State’s last game of the regular season. “And if we’re not focused on that, then a lot of these other things that everybody else wants to talk about, then those things become questionable. Those things become challenging. Those things become different.”

Things like making history can become a distraction. Particularly for a coach who – as a fair-skinned, bald son of a Black father and white mother – many people don’t automatically identify as Black.

But Franklin is indeed a brother, with a strong Black family tree and two daughters with his Black wife. His father, James Oliver Franklin, was in the Air Force when he met Jocelyn Franklin in her native England. They eloped to Ireland, moved to Pennsylvania, and soon split up. Oliver basically disappeared from his son’s life, but Jocelyn Franklin stayed in close contact with the Black side of the family, including the delightfully named aunts LaWanda, Romaine and Melbadene.

“I think my background is one of my greatest assets as a professional because it’s helped me to relate and empathize with people from varying circumstances in a way that’s somewhat unique,” Franklin told The Players Tribune in 2017.

After playing quarterback at Division II East Stroudsburg, Franklin started his coaching career in the college football hinterlands before getting his big break in 2000, when he became receivers coach at Maryland. In 2005, he coached receivers for the Green Bay Packers in the NFL, then was offensive coordinator at Kansas State and Maryland. In 2011, he was named coach at Vanderbilt, where three successful seasons earned him the Penn State job in 2014.

Penn State was still resolving the sexual abuse scandal that victimized boys during the tenure of legendary coach Joe Paterno. Franklin has succeeded in moving the proud program, winner of two national championships, out of that tainted era. But he has struggled to break into the elite tier of college football dominated by a handful of schools.

The home loss to Ohio State this season – in front of 111,030 fans, the largest crowd in Beaver Stadium history – dropped his record against the Buckeyes to 1-10. Penn State had first-and-goal with 6:43 left in the game, but got stuffed on three straight runs up the middle, then failed to even throw in the direction of tight end Tyler Warren, one of the best players in college football. Penn State’s defense could have given them another crack at tying or winning the game, but Ohio State started from its own 1-yard line and ran out the last 5:13 of the game with 11 consecutive soul-snatching runs.  

The criticism hit like a bone-crunching tackle. “Mid Game James” became a thing, again. The ugly numbers rained down: against opponents ranked in the top five, Franklin is 1-13 at Penn State. He’s 3-18 against top 10s, and 13-27 against teams in the top 25. 

What better way to reverse that narrative than against No. 1 Oregon on Saturday. Only then might Franklin think about making history.