James Franklin tells the media where to direct blame for goal line play-calling

When James Franklin hired Andy Kotelnicki away from Kansas to be his offensive coordinator this offseason, he ceded control of that side of the football to the creative play designer who has since helped transform Penn State quarterback Drew Allar from a talented but underwhelming sophomore to one of the most statistically efficient passers in the country as a junior. 

So, while Kotelnicki gets credit for the uptick in explosive plays compared to former OC Mike Yurcich, he also shoulders much of the blame for Penn State’s 20-13 loss to Ohio State in Week 10, and Franklin isn’t interested in offloading the weight of that burden. 

On Monday when Franklin spoke to the media, he revealed that he did not speak to his play-caller as he was stopped on four straight plays within the Ohio State five-yard line in the fourth quarter and failed to get tight end Tyler Warren the ball even once. 

“The last thing you want to do is that the head coach or somebody else is interjecting in those critical moments and making the coordinator hesitate,” Franklin told reporters in Happy Valley.

Franklin added that those discussions are happening throughout the week leading up to the game so both the head coach and offensive coordinator are prepared for crucial moments. That’s a reasonable chain of command and understandable to stay out of the way of an offensive coordinator who has brought you plenty of success in his first season on the staff. 

James Franklin has been here before

However, when you are James Franklin and you’ve lost to the Buckeyes in nine of your 10 tries heading into Saturday’s top-five matchup at Beaver Stadium, there needs to be some ownership of that moment. After Allar’s fourth-down pass to Khalil Dinkins sailed incomplete, the Nittany Lions didn’t touch the ball again, as Ohio State churned away the final 4:40 in the fourth quarter. 

Prior to his two-year stint at Kansas with his long-time boss Lance Leipold, Kotelnicki was calling plays for Buffalo and before that, Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater. For all he’s accomplished, he’s never stared down the Ohio State Buckeyes with a $20 million roster that’s loaded to the gills with talent and a program that has haunted Penn State for the past decade. He hasn’t felt the disappointment of a fourth-and-5 handoff in 2018 or the agony of a late fourth-quarter touchdown in Columbus in 2017. Franklin has, and from his team’s heroic upset in 2016, he knows what it takes to beat Ohio State, your best players, in that case Marcus Allen and Grant Haley on special teams, making special plays. 

Kaytron Allen has been immensely successful across his three years in Happy Valley, but he’s not the best player on this team’s offense, maybe not even the best running back, though that depends on how healthy Nick Singleton is. Regardless, Warren is the player who got Penn State in position to strike with his 33-yard run on a wildcat QB keeper down to the three-yard line and a 31-yard contested catch earlier in the drive, much like how Trace McSorley had Franklin’s team on the brink of taking down the Buckeyes in 2018 with 286 yards and two scores through the air and another 175 on the ground, and neither player got a chance to decide the game. 

Franklin didn’t need to call a play for Kotelnicki, that’s not how a smooth operation between a head coach and an offensive coordinator functions, but he needed to demand that No. 44 had the ball in his hands, especially before fourth down. The fourth-down call was designed from Warren but on a predictable route to the flat that Warren has scored one of his four receiving touchdowns this season on, and a route that Kotelnicki tried against USC, but was stuffed out then by an inferior defense. 

A bad sign for the future?

The goal-line stand was a microcosm of Franklin’s program’s failure to get over the hump against  Ohio State, something he, not his play-caller, is responsible for. So, regardless of who calls those plays, Franklin needed to take that failure on the chin. As a head coach, you can deputize responsibility, but there should never be an equal distribution of blame. 

It’s insightful for reporters to understand how the operation of Franklin’s coaching staff functions, but a peak behind the curtain is secondary to taking accountability for a loss. Franklin balked at his chance to do that and pointing the finger, not the thumb, is the behavior of a coach feeling the mounting pressure to keep his job. 

Penn State should not move on from James Franklin, he’s had the program knocking on the door for nearly a decade, and now would be the absolute worst time to sacrifice that stability as the College Football Playoff has expanded to 12 teams and revenue-sharing soon to be introduced to level the playing field between his Nittany Lions and Ryan Day’s Buckeyes. 

If Franklin can win 11 games and make the CFP, his job is safe, but if this season unravels and he fails to take the next step, this loss, and his actions since Ohio State quarterback Will Howard salted away the final seconds with a first-down run at the field he grew up dreaming of playing in blue and white, could be viewed as the beginning of the end.