Penn State Football: 3 takeaways from Week 7 bye

1. James Franklin is here to stay

I may be biased, but this was by far the best news of the weekend.

James Franklin has been an absolute revelation in Happy Valley since arriving on campus in January of 2014.

After the program was rocked with sanctions, a limited number of scholarships and the exit of head coach Bill O’Brien, only the Nittany Lions’ third head coach in an astonishing 47 years has brought life back into the program, and has truly helped to make Penn State football relevant again on a national level.

So when word leaked out that Texas A&M had interest in making Franklin its next head coach, the entire Nittany Nation was left in absolute shock.

I mean it makes sense, Franklin inherited a mismatched roster coming off of a 7-5 season, a quarterback who didn’t exactly fit his desired scheme or offensive philosophy and, frankly, a shell-shocked fan base, and he instilled a new culture of winning in State College.

I can honestly say that there hasn’t been a single game this season where I was worried that Penn State wouldn’t find a way to pull out a win, and so far the team hasn’t let me, or any of their legions of fans, down just yet.

And thankfully, it doesn’t look like Franklin is going to let fans down anytime soon either.

Franklin silenced any doubt about his commitment to Penn State with a single tweet, and frankly it makes perfect sense.

Growing up in Langhorne, Penn., Franklin always dreamed of suiting up in the blue and white as a high school quarterback, but never got the opportunity to do so, instead spending four years as the quarterback for the East Stroudsburg University Warriors before pursuing a career in coaching.

And Franklin took his lumps and slowly worked his way up the college football coaching ladder, from a position as a wide receivers coach at Kutztown University to an eventual head coaching gig at Vanderbilt.

Next: 5 reasons Penn State will repeat as Big Ten champs

And now, finally in his dream job, Franklin is out to show the world just how great Penn State football can be, a commitment I don’t foresee changing anytime soon.