Franklin the CEO needs great assistants, cannot afford to keep losing them

ALTOONA, Pa. -- The best thing James Franklin ever did at Penn State was hire Joe Moorhead as offensive coordinator in 2016. I'm a huge believer that the Nittany Lions never would have won the Big Ten title that year or re-emerged as a national power well ahead of schedule if not for Moorhead's innovative offense.

That 2016 team was loaded with tremendous talent -- Saquon Barkley, Chris Godwin, Mike Gesicki, Trace McSorley -- and while those guys surely helped make Moorhead's system, his system also helped make them stars.

Furthermore, I believe that if Franklin had not hired Moorhead, then the head coach would have been fired long ago. It took the incredible turnaround in 2016 to save Franklin's job, and that success led to more success the next three years.

Also in 2016, Franklin promoted Brent Pry to defensive coordinator after Bob Shoop left. That was another phenomenal move that helped set up Penn State for great success.

If you want to know how I feel about Pry, check out this column from a few weeks ago, when I called him the most valuable member of the Penn State program.

Franklin is an excellent CEO of a modern college football program. No one can argue that.

He's not a great football coach, as in the guy who designs everything and makes great decisions. I don't think anyone can argue that, either.

Franklin needs to have great coordinators and assistants who do the heavy lifting. Like Moorhead did in his two years, and like Pry has done for six years now. There's always the risk of, when you lose one good assistant coach, that you don't find a replacement who's as good.

That said, there could be an issue brewing as we enter another crazy coaching carousel.

Pry's name already has come up in connection with one outstanding job, and he probably will be mentioned for others, as well.

Pry would be a terrific fit at Virginia Tech, though I don't believe he'll get that job because he has no head coaching experience. The Temple job also is now open, and that might be a place where Pry could get his first shot at being a head coach.

I hold Pry in tremendously high regard as a person and as a coach, and whether it be Virginia Tech or Temple or anyplace else, the school that decides to give him a head coaching job would be making a wise decision, in my view.

But it would be a big, big loss for Penn State. And for Franklin.

Coaching turnover is something we never saw on Joe Paterno's staff. It just didn't happen.

We've all come to learn in the post-Paterno era that Penn State is no different from any other place when it comes to assistant coaches coming and going. There has been a great deal of turnover since 2012, some of it for the better, some for the worse.

Franklin fired offensive coordinator John Donovan after 2015, which opened the door for Moorhead.

When Moorhead left to become head coach at Mississippi State, Franklin decided to promote Ricky Rahne. I have always felt that was a mistake because the OC job at Penn State was an awesome gig at that point, and I do not believe Rahne was ready for the challenge. Rahne left to become head coach at Old Dominion two years ago, a great and timely move for him because Franklin really needed to move on from him as OC anyway.

Franklin only gave Kirk Ciarrocca one season in 2020 before firing him and replacing him with Mike Yurcich. I'm already on record saying I believe Yurcich should be fired for the offense's terrible production this season, although he will not be because of incoming QB recruit Drew Allar.

The bottom line with all of this is that, sometimes you hit a home run with a coaching change, such as Moorhead or Pry. Sometimes you strike out, such as with Rahne, Ciarrocca and Yurcich.

If Franklin were an incredible head coach who always made awesome decisions, we wouldn't have to worry about the coaching turnover as much. But he's not an incredible head coach. He's a fantastic CEO who relies heavily on the assistants he hires to do a great job, and sometimes they don't live up to that.

I don't know if Pry will pick this time to finally make the move to become a head coach. If it's Virginia Tech, that would be an easy decision because it's a great job. But if it's a smaller school, he would have to weigh the pros and cons, including salary, since he makes more than $1.5 million at Penn State. He may not be able to get that much if he were to become head coach at a smaller program.

Whatever the case, Pry has been a great asset to Franklin and Penn State. If now is the time for him to leave, Franklin simply cannot swing and miss hiring a replacement. Because if the offense is gonna have problems under Yurcich, the Lions have always at least been able to rely on their defense to keep them in games.

Penn State fans everywhere, therefore, should be keeping a close eye on Pry over the next couple of weeks.

WHAT IS MOORHEAD THINKING?

Moorhead apparently is the leading candidate for the head coaching vacancy at Akron. Why on earth he would want to take that job is baffling to me.

Akron has been atrocious of late, going 3-32 over its last 32 games. It is one of the worst programs in FBS, and an incredibly difficult rebuild job.

The last coach, Tom Arth, was only making $500,000 a year. Moorhead made $1 million this year as Oregon's offensive coordinator.

From a coaching standpoint, it makes little sense for Moorhead to jump off the high road in college football after being Mississippi State's head coach and Oregon's offensive coordinator to become head coach at Akron. He's a name and a guy who has had success, so surely he could get a much, much better job at some point.

What we don't know is all the personal stuff that could be going into this for Moorhead, who is from Pittsburgh and just might want to get back closer to his roots. He had to miss time this season at Oregon to have surgery for a non-COVID illness, and at 48 years old, maybe that changed his view on work and life.

Still, Akron? That's a tough, tough job.

No matter what Moorhead decides, I'll wish him the best of luck. He's a good guy who did great things for Penn State, and as I've already mentioned, Franklin wouldn't be where he is today without JoeMo.