James Franklin Is No Joe Paterno. Franklin Actually Works.

Apr 12, 2014; State College, PA, USA; Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin shakes hands with fans prior to the blue white spring game at Beaver Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew O

As James Franklin made his rounds at Big Ten Media Days this week, he showed himself to be on top of everything.

The guy is clearly a hands-on coach, just like Bill O’Brien was. Given what preceded those two coaches, that has to be refreshing in State College, especially since the Nittany Lions appear to be in great shape for the future as they finally move past what has plagued the program.

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If I were a Penn State fan, I would already embrace James Franklin more than I ever embraced Joe Paterno, scandal aside.

James Franklin will coach. James Franklin knows who his players are. James Franklin is hands-on as he builds his program. And James Franklin actually recruits and visits with players.

Each one of these things is something Joe Paterno avoided doing the past 15 years of his coaching career but managed to steal credit for all the wins until the Sandusky scandal broke.

I understand Paterno left a great legacy and won a lot of games, but perhaps what was lost about the defense of him during the Sandusky scandal was that his supporters were saying he did what he was required to do. That statement alone speaks about how Paterno ran the program. All he ever did was the bare minimum of what he was required to do to keep the figurehead title as head coach. But actually coaching? Please, that’s for his staff.

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From a football perspective, Paterno spent his last few coaching years as a completely hands-off coach. He never went on recruiting visits, never called plays in games, and never ran practices. He stood on the sidelines as a spectator and took credit for the wins that his staff achieved as he inched closer and closer to that all-time wins record and watched his legacy grow, not caring at all what became of the program in the process.

While fans debated if the games forfeited from 1998 to 2011 were unfair to Paterno’s legacy, I would make the case he never deserved those wins in the first place.

Paterno literally received credit for a win once when he watched the game from the press box with no headset. The game was in the Outback Bowl against Tennessee on New Year’s Day in 2007. I’m supposed to honor all of his wins and include that as one of them, when he had no more involvement with the team than regular fans watching the New Year’s Day Bowl games with their families on television?

Please.

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Remember that he even learned some new technology in Skype. Why? So he could close the deal with prospects without having to actually visiting and recruiting them.

I understand that the staff is important and does most of the work while the head coach is the CEO. But you still have to be the CEO. You think Nick Saban sits on his hands and watches his staff do everything? No. You think Jimbo Fisher isn’t heavily involved in his team? Of course he is.

And luckily, Franklin is using the model that those two are using to build a powerhouse, not the model of sitting around as a fan and doing nothing while simply hoping his staff can do the work.

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That’s what Paterno did. And the Nittany Lions suffered because of it. The program became stale the last 10 years with only a few good seasons sprinkled in, but never reaching its full potential.

Now, with the program in complete disarray, O’Brien was able to win games and Franklin is able to recruit incredibly well because of the Penn State brand and the ideal location to find talent. The brand, by the way, existed before Paterno inherited it. The program is doing just as well now as it was toward the end of Paterno’s career when it wasn’t on probation.

Can you imagine how good Nittany Lion football will be in the future, when the probation is lifted, if Franklin stays? This isn’t a hard school to win at because there’s so much available. If  it’s not on probation, it’s a Top 10 program in the country.

Thankfully there is a great coach in place there now who is actually willing to work, and the sky is the limit with him at Penn State.