Penn State rewards mediocrity, giving football coach James Franklin, a 10-year, $75 million contract. Here is a resume of his accomplishments:

One Big Ten title, and that was 2016, when he had the best running back in the country; 2 wins, 13 losses against top 10 opponents; defeated Ohio State once in eight games; 7-17 against Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State; average finish third in the Big Ten East; finished fourth in the east division three times, which in my estimation is a four-team conference; four offensive coordinators and three offensive line coaches in eight years; never had a good offensive line even with three different offensive line coaches; every year he states at least once that “I didn’t have the team prepared to play” and/or “our losses are the result of three or four plays” (if I’m paying you $5.6 million per year, you better have the team ready to play every game); this year, he didn’t have a backup quarterback ready to play in the loss to Iowa; 11-9 overall record the past two years.

Don’t buy into his excuse that last year was because of the virus. Every other team in college had to endure with the same virus; never made the college football playoffs.

As an example, coach Luke Fickell has been at Cincinnati only five years and had his team in the playoffs this year. Fickell’s salary is $3.4 million per year. Do you think he gets the same talent, has the same facilities and budget as Penn State?

Paul Cortese

Eighty Four

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