James Franklin's Top Five moments in Penn State program history | Friday Top Five
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The new Friday tradition on the Blue White Illustrated Daily Edition is the Friday Five. Host Thomas Frank Carr and reporter Ryan Snyder put together a top-five list related to Penn State football and discuss it on the show. This week they look at the top five moments at Penn State under James Franklin. What does that mean? Check out the show to hear the full list.
Here’s Snyder describing the number-five moment.
Penn State’s 2014 recruiting Class
“When T-Frank and I were chatting about this throughout this morning, it was, do we look at games or moments and how do you separate the two and what's most important? But to me, moments can be looked at in different ways. And for number five, for me, I thought the 2014 recruiting class, of course, I'm the recruiting guy,” Snyder says on the show.
“I thought that that's a moment we have to talk about, because I think when fans look back, they look at the 2018 class, right?Let's go back to 2014 and remember everything that's going on. Obviously, Bill O'Brien leaves quickly. Penn State's just starting to come out of the sanctions era.”
The Nittany Lions were on their fourth coach in five years after the firing of Joe Paterno and the team was barely staying afloat in the Sandusky Sanctions era. For fans that remember, O’Brien left on New Year’s Eve for a job with the Houston Texans. What fans might not remember, is that he was building a quality class on the recruiting trail, Snyder says.
“But, Bill O'Brien had a little bit of momentum at the time. From a recruiting perspective, what's going to happen after O'Brien leaves? No one knows. And as someone who tries to cover this and someone who's followed other schools and things like that, too, usually you see classes blow up at this time or new coaches struggle to add guys, whatever it may be.”
But once O’Brien left, the program was at a crossroads. Normally when a coach exists a program, things take a turn quickly, with players leaving the class and looking for a new team. At the time there wasn’t an early signing period for players to enroll early in a school. They had limited time, but could make the decision to go elsewhere.
“But the momentum or whatever you want to call it, at that time, very stagnant. I mean, recruiting wasn't like it is right now and you know how excited fans can get. I just think looking back on this class, which ranked number 22 in the country, this was a moment that we can point to the success down the road.”
Franklin was able to merge the two classes together and build a deep roster of future NFL talents, many of which are still playing in the league. That core group became the unit that helped Penn State win a Big Ten Championship.
Where does that moment rank on the list? Check out the show to find out.
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James Franklin's Top Five moments in Penn State program history | #FridayTopFive