For several years, the hypothesis persisted that if Southern California left Clay Helton, James Franklin of Penn State would be a logical candidate for The Trojans.
Franklin’s charisma, global vision and track record of good fortune tick all the boxes at USC, even though he might have peaked at Penn State.
Pandemic numbers cause many schools to have replaced the coach this season to hold on, but usC patience is rare. Trojans have a 2-0 start, but their game remains unrempt interesting and careless.
Meanwhile, Penn State is the most disappointing team in the country, 0-4 after starting the season in seventh place.
Maybe it’s time for Franklin and USC to make the rumors come true.
The collapse of the Nittany Lions is astonishing and strange. All-America supporter Micah Parsons retired in August and star football bearer Journey Brown had to drop out of football due to a disease downtown.
Still, Penn State will have a lot of ability to have another smart season, even if he couldn’t beat Ohio State in the Big Ten.
But since Devyn Ford scored that misguided landing in the first game in Indiana, the season has spiraled.
Penn State has now lost two games in which he gained more than 450 yards and kept his opponent (Indiana and Nebraska on Saturday) below three hundred yards. It’s hard to achieve.
“The message in the locker room after the game sucks, but none of us are going to avoid fighting,” Penn State Quarterback Will Levis said. “The season is over. “
It’ll be nice to see if Penn State can still save anything from this mess. In a general season, groups with high hopes can deflate and never recover. This season, it will be even more difficult to keep players motivated.
“We can all be better in each and every area,” Franklin said.
In addition to the tension of all this for Franklin, he lived far away for his circle of pandemic relatives to further protect his young daughter, who suffers from sickle cell disease.
Franklin has a 56-27 mark on Penn State since taking over a program devastated by sanctions and is recovering from the Sandusky scandal. Big Ten Championship.
He also had a 24-15 record in three seasons at Vanderbilt, which may be even more impressive than he completed at Penn State.
As for the USC, despite all the investments the school has made this off-season in auxiliary and personal running shoes for Helton, the Trojans still do not live up to their talent.
By the time of a week in a row, USC needed practice behind to win. Last week, the Trojans needed a little miracle to defeat the state of Arizona. This week, they achieved one opposed to an Arizona team determined to finish last in the Pac-12.
It’s hard to expect how USC leadership will compare this season. The Trojans are through the team of greatest talent in the South Pac-12 and can move on to the convention naming game without beating a ranked team.
Leaving Helton will cost a small fortune. But if it’s as productive as Helton can produce, he may not be smart enough. And if a frustrating season in Happy Valley leads Franklin to a serious new challenge, it can further motivate USC to take the step.
STAY TOO LONG
If Franklin needs to see an example of a coach who has been on a task too long, he can take a look at what’s happening at Stanford with David Shaw.
Shaw followed Jim Harbaugh with Cardinal and won double-digit seasons and three Pac-12 titles in his first six seasons.
Since then, the Cardinal has slipped again. First a little at a time. Then they dropped to 4-8 last year and are now 0-2 after Colorado on Saturday.
Shaw may have had several jobs in the NFL when Stanford was driving, but loyalty to his alma mater and a preference not to uproot his circle of relatives kept him at Stanford.
But winning at The Farm is hard. The bullying ball flavor the Cardinal has used to avoid the Pac-12 for years is now replaced and the school’s margin of error in recruiting has been incredibly thin.
It is incomprehensible that Stanford would never fire Shaw, however, he and the Cardinal seem to benefit from a change.
AROUND THE COUNTRY: After a week of taking games off the calendar due to COVID-19, Saturday only featured a maximum team of five sensitive and no teams classified in form. The playoff race necessarily came to a halt. Kentucky paid tribute to offensive line coach John Schlarman, who died this week after a long war on cancer, by lining up in the first game opposite Vanderbilt without a left guard. Array . . fact about Notre Dame Phil Jurkovec’s move to his former team as Boston College starter. But the game with the Irish turned out to be a possibility for Ian Book to show that Notre Dame has kept the quarterback smart. For more than two weeks, Book has never played better. Array . . Indiana’s No. 10 has overtaken Michigan State and will move to Ohio State’s No. 3 next week for what will likely be the first game-high 10 in history. the program. Array . . North Carolina’s Sam Howell set a school record with 550 passing yards in a wild victory over Wake Forest. Howell is the nation’s most overlooked wonderful quarterback.
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Follow Ralph D. Russo on https://twitter. com/ralphDrussoAP and pay attention to https://westwoodonepodcasts. com/pods/ap-top-25-college-football-podcast/
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