James Franklin Is the Perfect Big Ten Rival for Urban Meyer
COLUMBUS, Ohio — It started with a Wednesday tour of Urban Meyer's office on ESPN.com. Sitting next to a few of the Ohio State head coach's favorite books was a paper printout, the contents of which would surely set the corner of the Internet that claims the Buckeyes abuzz.
Long rumored and often debated, the potential of black-based uniforms has been a polarizing prospect for Ohio State fans dating back to the mid-1990s. And on Wednesday, Meyer confirmed that they may be closer to becoming a reality than some Buckeye traditionalists would prefer.
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"Somewhere down the road, maybe," Meyer said, before confirming that he'd be OK with an all-black Ohio State look.
Less than 24 hours later, a different coach at another tradition-rich Big Ten program made a similar statement.
"One of the things I am looking at possibly doing is a throwback uniform," Penn State head coach James Franklin said, via StateCollege.com's Ben Jones. "Although our uniform has pretty much stayed the same, there has been variations over the years. Maybe one game a year you do a throwback of the elements we've had over the years."
The degree of their public advocacy may vary, but the reasoning behind Meyer and Franklin's acceptance—or perhaps preference—of alternate jerseys doesn't differ.
"It's a great way to pay respect to the past, but give the players and recruits a way to see we're doing something a little bit different," Franklin said.
"I love tradition," Meyer said in 2013. "But I love recruiting better."
Meyer and Franklin will officially face off for the first time this Saturday when the Buckeyes head to Happy Valley for a prime-time matchup with the Nittany Lions. But the third-year Ohio State coach has become plenty familiar with the first-year Penn State head man, as the two have already gone head-to-head several times on the recruiting trail.
Recruiting is the lifeblood of any program, as Meyer often says, and since arriving in State College in January, Franklin has offered a transfusion of sorts for the Nittany Lions. With just more than three months to go until national signing day, Penn State's 2015 class ranks 11th in the nation—one spot ahead of Meyer's Buckeyes.
Unsurprisingly, Franklin's success against Meyer has played a key role in his impressive haul thus far. Of the Nittany Lions' 18 current commits, seven were also offered by Ohio State, with PSU beating out the Buckeyes for the likes of 4-star offensive tackle Sterling Jenkins, 4-star offensive guard Steven Gonzalez and 4-star running back Andre Robinson.
Meanwhile, five of Ohio State's 18 current commits possess invitations to play for the Nittany Lions, including the three highest-ranked members of the Buckeyes' 2015 class: 5-star linebacker Justin Hilliard, 4-star athlete Jerome Baker and 4-star defensive end Jashon Cornell.
It's far too early to say that Franklin has surpassed or even matched Meyer on the recruiting trail—after all, Penn State's 2015 class is considered full while Ohio State believes it still has a few spots left—but nobody else in the Big Ten has challenged the Buckeyes' head coach as frequently as Franklin has in his first 10 months on the job.
Sure, Michigan might pull a Jabrill Peppers here and Michigan State has shown the ability to land a Malik McDowell there, but neither Brady Hoke nor Mark Dantonio have shown the consistent success against Meyer on the recruiting trail that Franklin has. It hasn't hurt that Franklin has benefited from a home-state advantage in talent-rich Pennsylvania, which he vowed to take full advantage of at his introductory Penn State press conference.
“We are going to dominate the state. We are going to dominate the region,” Franklin said. “I've worked a lot of different institutions that tried to compete. Recruiting against Penn State University was always an unbelievable challenge because this school has everything that young men are looking for."
That wasn't the case less than three years ago, when hampered by one of the most horrific scandals in sports history, Penn State appeared to have lost its luster. What was the Nittany Lions' loss on the recruiting trail turned out to be the Buckeyes' gain, as Meyer's first class in Columbus was littered with players who would have likely otherwise landed at Penn State.
Noah Spence, Tommy Schutt, Armani Reeves, Camren Williams and Joey O'Connor all had previously committed to the Nittany Lions or were considered heavy Penn State leans before the Jerry Sandusky scandal caused each to reconsider his options. In the span of two months, Meyer managed to land all five, catapulting the Buckeyes to the nation's fifth-ranked class.
Ohio State's advantage over its secondary rival only figured to grow in the summer of 2012, when unprecedented sanctions including a reduction of 20 scholarships and a four-year bowl ban were handed down by the NCAA. Nittany Lions head coach Bill O'Brien made the most of what he had, landing 2013 5-star quarterback Christian Hackenberg and even beating out Meyer for 2014 4-star tight end Mike Gesicki.
Penn State appeared to be on the rise, accumulating a 15-9 record from 2012-13 despite its sanctions. But the Nittany Lions seemed to suffer another blow on New Year's Eve when O'Brien left to take the Houston Texans' head coaching position.
That, however, only proved to be a precursor to a perfect storm.
Looking to land a home run hire to replace O'Brien, the Nittany Lions lured Franklin from Vanderbilt, where he had accumulated a 24-15 record—including two bowl wins—in three seasons in the rugged Southeastern Conference.
As evidenced by his introductory press conference, it was clear that recruiting was as important to Franklin as it was to Meyer from the start. The new Penn State head coach went right to work, landing 4-star offensive tackle Ryan Bates, 4-star athlete Kamonte Carter, 3-star safety Jarvis Miller, 4-star running back Saquon Barkley, 3-star defensive end Ryan Buchholz, 3-star linebacker Jake Cooper and the aforementioned Robinson all in his first month on the job.
But if the recruiting prowess of Franklin wasn't enough, the Nittany Lions received another boost in early September when their postseason ban was dropped and their scholarship total was fully restored for the 2015 season. Two years earlier than expected, Penn State would be back to full strength, with a head coach who appears to be a perfect fit for a new era of Nittany Lions football.
That may seem like bad news for the Buckeyes, but the reality is that given the current state of the Big Ten, the conference could use all the help it can get. With Michigan down and likely facing its third coaching change in eight years, it's been up to Ohio State and Michigan State to carry the Big Ten on a national level, with little help from the likes of Wisconsin and Nebraska.
Penn State's not there—at least not yet.
The Nittany Lions are 4-2 on the year, with losses to Northwestern and Michigan, and find themselves as double-digit underdogs at home this Saturday despite the Buckeyes possessing a freshman quarterback. An inefficient offensive line has been a glaring weakness, as this appears to be the year that its previous sanctions have finally caught up to Penn State.
But to steal another Meyer-ism, in college football, momentum is everything, and the Nittany Lions have plenty of it. While it may not show up in their record or on the field this Saturday, Penn State is trending upward, and Meyer has taken notice.
"I heard that Penn State considers Ohio State their rivals—obviously we have one. But I think it’s a little bit like when we played Wisconsin a couple years ago because that’s really a rivalry because there’s some really good teams," Meyer said. "We consider them an elite program."
We may be a year or two from that rivalry being fully restored, but all indications are that, thanks to Meyer and Franklin, it will be sooner rather than later.
It's just a matter of what the two teams' uniforms will look like when it happens.
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Ohio State Lead Writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com and recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.
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