James Franklin spent more than a decade at Penn State building one of the more successful programs in recent Big Ten history. And somewhere in the sprint to get there, he never stopped to introduce himself.<\/p>\n
On Adam Breneman\u2019s Next Up podcast, Franklin recently reflected<\/a> on his tenures at Penn State and Vanderbilt and admitted that his biggest regret from both stops had less to do with what happened on the field than with how he handled the local media and fan base around it.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless you\u2019re a real football fan, a lot of people in the Northeast and specifically at Penn State, weren\u2019t really following Vanderbilt,\u201d Franklin said, per CBS Sports\u2019 Brad Crawford<\/a>. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be a real football fan to follow what was going on at Vanderbilt. I think we came there, we had a ton of respect for everything we had done in the SEC, but I don\u2019t know if that necessarily carried all the way to the Northeast for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Just days after Penn State let him go, Franklin made his first public appearance<\/a> on College GameDay,\u00a0which Todd McShay\u00a0at the time<\/a> called\u00a0\u201cmessaging\u201d and \u201cimage protection.\u201d Franklin has always understood how to manage his public persona on a big stage, just maybe not as much as he would\u2019ve liked to in State College.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I look back, that\u2019s an area where I think we could\u2019ve done a better job,\u201d Franklin continued. \u201cLet\u2019s take a breath, let\u2019s spend a little bit more time with the current players. Let\u2019s spend a little bit more time with the local media. Let\u2019s spend a little bit more time with the local fans and fanbase. And I felt it was just sprint, sprint, sprint, and we didn\u2019t have time to lay that foundation the way we\u2019d liked to.\u201d<\/p>\n That history with the local beat didn\u2019t start with last fall\u2019s losing streak. In 2024, Franklin walked out of a press conference without answering questions<\/a> about two former Penn State players who had been charged with sex crimes. A school spokesperson had read a prepared statement before Franklin took the podium, and when reporters pressed him on it, he left. He came back the following week and apologized<\/a> for how he handled it.<\/p>\n It wouldn\u2019t be the last time his relationship \u2014 or lack thereof \u2014 with the media became part of the story.<\/p>\n At Virginia Tech, Franklin\u2019s contract already includes ACC viewership incentive bonuses<\/a>, with money on the line depending on the Hokies\u2019 conference television ratings. It\u2019s a structure that didn\u2019t exist at Penn State, and it suggests Franklin understands that building a program and building an audience aren\u2019t the same thing, and that he can no longer afford to treat them that way.<\/p>\n