James Franklin fires back at critics, won’t ‘apologize for winning’

Every college football team in the country has rough games—especially those who are among the top teams in the country. Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, and Florida State, are worthy of being the top teams in the country. But sometimes it feels like Penn State football is held to a higher standard in the media. If Penn State has a slow start or a close finish to a lesser team, it feels amplified in the national media. James Franklin noticed this too and had a fiery response to that criticism.

James Franklin says he isn’t going to ‘apologize for winning’

Obviously, the Penn State football team has found themselves in a close game with a bad Indiana team this past weekend. But the question becomes, does it even matter at the end of the day? The whole “a win is a win” mentality comes to mind. James Franklin shared his thoughts on how Penn State is unfairly judged compared to other top teams in the country.

Franklin said, “…But there’s just so many examples, I mean there’s teams that are ranked as the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 teams in the country and they struggle to get a win and no one talks about that. But when we struggle to get a win or it’s not as pretty, it’s like it’s overly concerned in my opinion.

It’s a long season, you’re not going to dominate every single week. You’ve got to find ways to win however you do it. You gotta learn from the wins, you gotta learn from the challenges, and you gotta learn from the setbacks. You have to be transparent with yourself and with your team.

But I also think it’s important to put it in perspective. Every Sunday, I put it up on the powerpoint slide. I never come out and say it to you guys because I think if I say those things it’s going to look like a slight to another program, which I don’t mean it as. But I think there were 3 teams ranked in the top 17 in the country that lost, to unranked opponents. But when we don’t play as well as people think we should, and still win. I’m not going to apologize for winning.”

It’s always interesting to listen to how Coach Franklin observes the chatter surrounding the Nittany Lions. But, I’ll let you all decide, do you think Penn State is held to an unfair standard in the eyes of the national media?

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