Penn State head coach James Franklin met with the media Wednesday afternoon, his first press conference since a March 25 meeting under the same circumstances.
That is to say, remotely.
With more than three dozen participants on the video conference, Franklin answered questions regarding a wide spectrum of topics. Let’s get into some of the most pertinent news and notes from the hour-long session, here:
1) The primary takeaway of the entire press conference can likely be boiled down to the notion of adjustment.
Players, families, coaches, universities, conferences, and the NCAA, none will be spared from having to be willing to be flexible if and when the opportunity to play football eventually arrives. There will be hoops to jump through and alterations that need to be made that would have been inconceivable before the COVID-19 pandemic.
But now that it’s here, and the choice is between not playing at all or playing with the condition of a laundry list of compromises and adjustments that have to be made, the overwhelming consensus is going to be to make those adjustments.
As Franklin pointed out, however, it’s all reliant on a foundational understanding of health and safety.
“It's all about the welfare of our students and keeping them healthy, and not only our students, but also the fans, and everybody, and that's what makes this issue so complicated,” Franklin said, pointing to other professional leagues and organizations and the models they set forth. “We're not them, but there are lessons that can be learned from them.
“I’m a believer in science. I'm a believer in medicine and listening to the experts. So I think our decisions have to be based on that. Number one, what are the experts saying? The scientists, what are the doctors saying, what can we do to create the best, safest, healthiest environment we possibly can? That's number one. And then the second part of this, and the reason I say it is, that we all realize there's an economic part of this as well, and for us to act like there's not an economic part of this would not be being transparent. But it better go in that order and it better go in health and welfare and science-based first, and then take an economic impact of it as well and combine those two things.”
Stressing his understanding of football’s importance to the program itself, but also the university, the community, and businesses far and wide, Franklin provided his framework from which progress would be possible.
“I'm confident that we're going to find a way to make this thing work. I'm hopeful that we're going to find a way to make this thing work,” he said. “But never and not at the expense of what's in the best interest of health and student welfare.”
2) Having discussed the easily identifiable economic component of all of this, Franklin acknowledged the pre-existing pressure that being the “football coach at Penn State” carries with it to help “rise all boats in the athletic department” as well as the community.
With that sensitivity in mind, Franklin noted that “everything is on the table and everything is being discussed” when asked whether or not pay cuts or other options would be required to help overcome the financial impact of this pandemic.
He also noted, without getting into specifics, a contribution back to the university that he’d planned to gift with his wife Fumi.
“Me and my wife are doing something in terms of a gift to the university, that's going to impact the students from a scholarship standpoint. But right now, the way we're doing it, it's on an individual basis,” Franklin said. “And again, those other things, I wouldn't get into those things. But right now, everything's on the table, everything is being discussed. Obviously, the longer this goes, the conversation changes daily. But right now, there are personal decisions that are being made and me and my wife have made that decision.”
3) More than a month ago, the conversation within Penn State centered on the notion of a 60-day lead-up as necessary to get into a football season.
Wednesday, Franklin offered his perspective with an amended timeline for how he’d envision the return of student-athletes to campus, their reintegration into football activities, training and practices, and, eventually, a season.
“I think the model that most people are talking about is a six-week model that would be ideal,” he said. “People forget very quickly… that when I played college football and a lot of people played college football, you weren't there all summer. You were at home, working out on your own, and you'd show up and you'd be in training camp for three weeks or a month before the season started and you went and played.
“So yeah, I think you definitely can do it under six weeks. I think you could do it in a month. Because that's how it was always run before. So I think there are ways of getting it done and I do think based on a lot of the things we've already discussed, that we have to have some overarching guidelines that are important, that again are based on science, that are based on the health and welfare of our student-athletes.”
Pointing to the reality that within Penn State, many different models have been worked to allow the program to proceed with detailed plans for a wide variety of scenarios, Franklin again touched on the complexities that exist and that will require flexibility from all sides.
“I think at the end of the day, we're going to have to be able to adjust and be flexible, because the other thing that's not being discussed a whole lot is, it's not like when we get back things are going to be back to normal,” he said. “Even just everybody coming back and getting physicals. In the old days, you'd have 120 people in the training room, and you'd go from one circuit to the next seeing the different doctors and getting all your tests done. That's not going to happen. Those physical tests, when they arrive back on campus, may take four days because you're going to have to do them in small groups.
“There's a lot of things that have to be discussed, there's a lot of things that have to be decided, but I do think just to transition from their being at home to on-campus and getting back to a point where you're able to meet and practice, it's going to take a lot more time than it normally does based on all the testing and procedures that are going to have to be followed.”
4) From a purely logistical standpoint, Franklin laid out the framework of how the program is currently operating.
Noting that vacation time likely wouldn’t be part of the equation if football activities are to resume this summer, Franklin said that the staff is “scattered all over the place.” Since having to make adjustments through the first week, though, he said that the program is “in a pretty good rhythm now.”
Specifically, that means Monday, Wednesday, Friday staff meetings at 8 a.m., followed by offense and defensive meetings. Every evening includes “about four” recruiting calls or Zoom meetings. Every Wednesday the entire team meets. And once every other week, the program holds a meeting for parents, “which has been really good to keep them informed about what’s going on and to answer any questions that they may have.” Additionally, he added that once a week meetings are set up for the remaining members of Penn State’s 2020 recruiting class.
“More than anything, it’s just trying to stay connected with everybody as much as we possibly can, keeping everybody informed of what's going on,” Franklin said. “And I think the biggest challenge that I would say, for me in my position here, I think as a leader, you're trying to be able to give everybody the vision and give everybody the plan, but it's just hard to do that right now when there's so much uncertainty.
“For us, we try to go back to what we talk about with everything else in our program, which is waking up every single morning and trying to be the best you possibly can academically and athletically and socially so that when we are able to get out of this, we can hit the ground running. But that's the biggest challenge I think for leadership right now is, what you typically want to do is, you want to be able to say this is what we're working towards, this is where we're going, this is when it's going to happen, and this is how we're going to get there. And right now, that's just a little challenge.”
5) Speaking of challenges, Franklin discussed the human nature reality that has accompanied this pandemic and all of the implications that are part of it when it comes to player development.
Separated from each other, and under NCAA restrictions that prevent mandatory workouts at this time, Franklin acknowledged that the voluntary physical work for the players at their homes will eventually show itself.
“I do think what you're going to see when they return is, the gap of the guys that are really self-driven and motivated and the guys that need the structure and the discipline of the program is going to widen. I think that's naturally just going to happen,” Franklin said. “Guys that obviously are working right now the way they would if they were on campus compared to the guys that need a little bit of push, need a little bit of supervision, that need a little bit of accountability, the gap of those guys is going to widen.”
That said, Franklin continued, the program is in the fortunate spot of having “so many guys that are driven and motivated” through this. On the unfortunate side, though, there are also challenges with some players not having the same resources as others.
“You may have some of those guys that are wired that way, but they just don't have the resources in the homes to do it. There's only so many pushups that you can do compared to someone that's got a bench press,” Franklin said. “But I do think the biggest part is going to be, how motivated the guys are to do it, but there is going to be a little bit of the aspect just about the resources that we have at home. A lot of our guys are doing backpack workouts where they've taken the backpack we've given them and filled them up with either sand or rocks, and that's what they're doing their workout with, with that strapped on their back.
"But obviously, some of our guys have some facilities and some of our guys have some resources, whether it's in their basements or whatever it may be. We've got one guy who is working out with his mom's frying grease. Two big buckets of frying grease that he curls and things like that. That's what he's using. So literally, it's the whole gamut.”
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