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Franklin has areas to improve

This is an important time for James Franklin as he figures out who he is as a head coach and who he’s not, plus determine who can help him and who can’t when it comes to taking the next crucial steps with the Penn State football program.

Franklin is far more of a project than a finished product as a head coach. He came to Penn State with a lot of fanfare after working miracles at Vanderbilt, but it’s pretty clear he has a long way to go to fine tune the nuances and instincts necessary to be considered a good head coach.

And that’s OK. He’s only in his fifth season in that capacity, he’s just 43 years old, he’s an excellent recruiter, and he is a bright guy who should keep making progress over time.

The timeout brain cramp at the end of Saturday’s 23-21 loss at Northwestern was merely the latest of many examples we’ve seen over two seasons that Franklin is not a good game coach. He made a mistake, and you know what, he owned up to it, which is more respectable than the way Mike Tomlin handles his frequent clock blunders with the Steelers.

But if Grant Haley comes down with an interception instead of dropping the ball when he hit the ground, Penn State would have beaten Northwestern. Not to pick on Haley, but on the next pass play, had he defended a third-and-15 better instead of biting the wrong way, PSU probably would have held on fourth down and won the game.

Some fans don’t like the late wildcat call on third-and-1 to Saquon Barkley because it was obvious to anyone who had been paying attention all day that the Nittany Lions were likely to dial up that play. But hey, Barkley is a budding superstar, right, and if he can’t get 1 yard to seal a victory on a play that had been working well, then Penn State doesn’t deserve to win.

This isn’t making excuses for Franklin. Far from it.

Players have to make plays. Penn State had two of its better players in position to make plays to close out a win, and they couldn’t deliver.

Where this all comes back on Franklin has more to do with shortcomings such as:

n A consistent failure to have his team ready to play on the road, especially on offense

n The feeling that he’s not always ready to make quick decisions in various game situations, and

n The fact that he has placed some assistant coaches in key positions where they aren’t performing at a high level in the Big Ten

Franklin absolutely must find a way to improve in those first two areas if he’s ever going to compete for Big Ten titles against the league’s outstanding coaches. He should get better with more experience, and if he doesn’t, then Penn State can remain a good program in the league but will constantly come up short of being great.

The assistant coaches element might be an even greater challenge for Franklin. Whatever he does to improve himself will be an internal process, but making tough decisions that could negatively impact his friends will be gut-wrenching calls.

Franklin talks about how the staff spends so much time with one another and even vacations together with their families. That can be dangerous because it can cloud the head coach’s judgment when it comes time to cut ties with an assistant who’s not pulling his weight.

Offensive coordinator John Donovan receives the most criticism. The playcalling has been better of late, but it’s very iffy that he can be the guy to out-scheme great coaches such as Urban Meyer, Jim Harbaugh and Mark Dantonio.

Special teams coordinator Charles Huff is lucky to still have a job. Or at least that title. Huff might be a good running backs coach, but Penn State’s special teams have been a disaster under his watch – the kickoff return for a TD Saturday was crushing – and Franklin must be ready to make a change in the offseason.

Offensive line coach Herb Hand is one of Franklin’s best friends. If the line play doesn’t improve in the coming years, could Franklin stomach making a change there?

No one would want to make that kind of decision, but this is big-time college football, and tough calls like that have to be made sometimes.

Penn State has a bye this week, and all of Franklin’s energy will be spent getting the team ready to host Michigan in what should be a fun game Nov. 21.

In the bigger picture, Franklin has about two more months left in this season, then he’s going to have to do some soul searching.

He will be losing his quarterback, Christian Hackenberg, to the NFL, along with three pro defensive linemen in Carl Nassib, Austin Johnson and Anthony Zettel. There are many reasons to believe next season could be pretty rough as the Lions break in a new quarterback and plug many holes.

By 2017, as long as the quarterback situation plays out well, Penn State should be in position to start challenging for division titles. We will be able to more accurately assess the job Franklin has done and is capable of doing at that point.

Until then, the coach has a lot of work to do to get himself and his staff up to par for the rigors of the Big Ten.

Cory Giger is the host of “Sports Central” weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m. on ESPN Radio 1430 WVAM.

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