It’s on me: James Franklin owns up to poor record in big games

Following the Penn State football loss to Ohio State, James Franklin did not take responsibility for his poor record in his tenure. Obviously, his overall record at Penn State is excellent, but he is 1-9 against Ohio State since he has taken over as head coach. After the Ohio State game, we saw players like Drew Allar show their emotions for their performance. But, that message didn’t feel the same from James Franklin. Maybe it was the heat of the moment, but today he got a chance to clear the air on this topic.

Is it fair to judge James Franklin on his performance in big games?

During today’s media availability, James Franklin said what most Penn State wanted to hear after the loss to Ohio State. He took responsibility for the poor record against Ohio State and Michigan. He owned that it all starts with him, it honestly felt like the most transparent version of Franklin we’ve seen in a long time.

Franklin said, “Again, I’m actually glad you asked the question because I wish I would have answered it on Saturday, although I was thinking about that specific game at the time. I think it’s more than fair to judge me and my staff for all of it, right? I mean, that’s what it’s about. The good, the bad, the consistency, the lack of success in that game, all of it. That’s totally fair to be judged by all of those things. I also think it’s important to judge the entire body of work, all of it, which I don’t need to get into right now because I don’t want it to come off the wrong way. Yeah, I think it’s totally fair to be judged based on all those things, based on all those things, the whole body of work, the good and the bad.”

James Franklin takes responsibility for Ohio State loss

It wasn’t just the game this past Saturday, fans throughout the Penn State football community need answers when we haven’t bridged the gap. It’s one thing to lose a game on a missed field goal or to have a critical error late in the game that costs your team. But when it’s year over year and the games don’t feel close, that is a problem. At the end of the day, it’s up to the man at the top to narrow the gap.

Franklin added, “Ultimately, it’s always on me when things don’t go well. When things do go well, trust me, I had all the things; when I talk about our process of being prepared for that game and then literally what I was going to say in the press conference after getting that win, it was going to be, obviously, to praise the players. What was the difference this year in being able to get that win? It was going to be about the players and some other things that I wanted to talk about, but that didn’t happen. When it doesn’t happen, it is ultimately on me and my responsibility. There’s no doubt about that. There’s no gray area about that whatsoever. Is it nuanced, and is there a lot of things that go into that that ultimately no one really cares about at that time? Yes. There’s no doubt about it. At the end of the day, the most important thing is for me to take responsibility and do everything within my power to get it fixed. There’s no doubt about it.”

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