Cover 3: Did Mike Gundy pass up an easier path to the College Football Playoff?
2. Franklin will be ready to replace Joe Moorhead
New Mississippi State coach Joe Moorhead came into the 2017 season as one of the nation's most desirable head coaching candidates. Landing at Mississippi State may have surprised some around the country, but that he left Penn State didn't surprise anybody, especially Nittany Lions' coach James Franklin. You can bet he's got a plan to replace him.
Franklin has been one of the fastest risers in coaching over the last decade. His ability to recruit, motivate and manage a program have all been impossible to ignore, but one of his best qualities as a head coach has been finding talented assistants.
Consider his first staff at Vanderbilt. His offensive coordinator was Maryland running backs coach John Donovan, someone who had never been a coordinator before. He plucked defensive coordinator Bob Shoop out of the FCS ranks from William and Mary. Those guys powered a run that brought Vandy to 9-win seasons and sent the whole crew to Penn State. At Vanderbilt, he also pulled Sean Spencer out of Bowling Green and Spencer's become one of the nation's top recruiters.
He pulled Brent Pry from Georgia Southern and Pry has since gone on to take over for Shoop in directing Penn State's highly regarded defense. And then there was the hiring of Moorhead.
When a change needed to be made at offensive coordinator, Franklin went off the radar to hire the Fordham head coach and it was lauded as a smart, low risk, high reward move. It turned out to be exactly that. There was no prior relationship with Moorhead, no coaching tree cross-pollination. Franklin had simply noticed his production from afar and listed to him at a coaching clinic where Moorhead blew him away.
Franklin has a knack for finding talented coaches in places that others may not even look and when I sat down with him in the spring, I asked him about that specifically: what's his trick? It was clear, he'd be ready for this moment again.
"I go to the convention every year with a plan," Franklin said. "When we go visit staffs, I go visit staffs not just to talk ball, but to look on their staff to see who I would hire. [It's the] same thing when people come and visit us. When I'm out recruiting and I see someone that presents themselves well and is organized, I think that makes sense.
"Whenever we're at a game I open the media guide and I go through and I open it and I'm reading it and I highlight guys. I also highlight guys that are from Pennsylvania or have Penn State ties because I always think that's important. If you can hire a guy from California or a guy from Texas or a guy from Pennsylvania, I think they're all very similar but the guy from Pennsylvania, my belief is a guy from this region you've got a chance to keep him a little longer. The guy from California, if UCLA or USC comes open the next year for the same job it's gonna be hard."
Franklin indicated that he manages a list that is roughly 30-deep of candidates for every position on his staff. The list evolves and grows and given the success his last hire has had over the past two seasons at offensive coordinator, it is safe to expect his offensive coordinator column has gotten some attention.
Entire article:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...-easier-path-to-the-college-football-playoff/
Apparently he is "A MAN WITH A PLAN" at least for hiring assistants.
