James Franklin pokes the bear
Keep talking James. See you in happy valley.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:42 PM ^
Ahem, I believe you mean pokes the Boa Constrictor*
October 10th, 2023 at 1:43 PM ^
Frames Janklin
October 10th, 2023 at 4:02 PM ^
His comments are sort of like the pot calling the kettle black. They're playing UMass this week.....good God
October 10th, 2023 at 5:18 PM ^
Well - "here are the receipts", as they say for OOC games:
Franklin has been HC since 2014 and PSU has played - Pitt (x4), Auburn (x2), WVU this yr. - 7 games vs P5 teams.
Also - Temple (x3), Akron (x2), Buffalo (x2), Kent St. (x2), U Mass (x2), App. St., Army, Ball St., Central Fla, Central Mich, GA St., Ohio, SDSU, and three D-II teams - Delaware, Idaho, & Villanova.
Harbs has been HC since 2015 and we have played - ND (x2), Colorado, UF, Oregon St., Utah, Washington - 7 games vs P5 teams. Plus we played BYU & Cinci which are now P5.
Also - Hawaii (x2), UNLV (x2), Western Mich (x2), Air Force, Army, Bowling Green, Central Fla., Colorado St., UConn, E. Carolina, Middle Tenn St., N. Illinois, SMU. Zero D-II teams.
And I'm pretty sure it's understood that coaches might have some input on schedules but not that much and the Covid year and the UCLA series could not be re-scheduled. Franklin can really fuck all the way off on this one.
October 10th, 2023 at 8:19 PM ^
Those are FCS teams (fka I-AA), not D-II teams, but point still taken.
October 10th, 2023 at 6:15 PM ^
i was too lazy to look up their OOC, but just knew it was true lol
October 10th, 2023 at 8:12 PM ^
Well, it's a game, and blowhards gotta blow. And--learning from guys like Deion--it's easier to talk crap before the game than after your ass is handed back to you on a platter.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:43 PM ^
Penn State plays UMass this Saturday.
October 10th, 2023 at 2:11 PM ^
I love how unself-aware he is. Kind of like Ryan "You and Me Against the World" Day.
For those of you old enough to remember:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyv71DcD7PU
October 10th, 2023 at 2:21 PM ^
Appropriate.
"Remember when the circus came to town,
and you were frightened by the clown?"
October 10th, 2023 at 2:31 PM ^
Plus 1 for breaking out some Helen Reddy!
October 10th, 2023 at 5:31 PM ^
I like the part where the little girl says to Ryan Day “tell me again, mommy”
October 10th, 2023 at 7:59 PM ^
Wendy, thousands of dollars and decades of therapy went into erasing all vestiges of that song from my memory. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I'm also humming "I am Woman, hear me Roar", which is a bit awkward for a 59 year old white male public school counselor.
October 10th, 2023 at 9:41 PM ^
Ugh, how was Helen Reddy ever a thing? I unfortunately remember those days well.
October 10th, 2023 at 2:13 PM ^
Franklin was talking about Indiana because they backed out of their series with Louisville. Still, given their schedule, he should have just stayed away from the topic.
October 10th, 2023 at 6:54 PM ^
FWIW - the exact text of the question and answer is below.
Franklin should name teams instead of vaguely saying "there's a team in this conference" and "another team" ----- but as I read this, Indiana is the team referred to in paragraph 1, and Michigan in paragraph 4.
I'll criticize myself: I believed the Twitter quote and replied elsewhere in this thread before doing any further reading on my own. But after getting the FULL quote, IMO this is rather clearly not him criticizing Michigan.
--------------
Q. Last month, you were asked about scheduling teams like Delaware and you said there was pretty good data to suggest that scheduling like that in the non-conference helps teams win championships and get to the playoff. Do you see that approach to non-con scheduling changing or staying the same with a 12-team playoff arriving soon?
A: Yeah, I would say there's a team in this conference, specifically, that's buying out of a ton of game contracts that are already signed, to go in the complete opposite direction. No, I don't think it's changed.
I would say you could even make the argument it's magnified and that's why people are changing their schedules because you look at who people are going to have to play, just in our conference, it's going to be even more challenging than it's ever been.
I don't think the philosophy or the model has changed. You've got to do whatever you possibly can to give yourself a chance, number one, to be undefeated at the end of the season, to your point, with a bigger playoff, there's probably a little bit more wiggle room in terms of, right now it's kind of undefeated or at-most one loss, and then on top of that, if you're not scheduling to be undefeated, you're scheduling to have the least amount of losses possible to give yourself a chance to be in the Playoffs.
There's another team in this conference that has had a ton of success the last couple years, and again, I think it would follow the same argument. So no, I don't think so, and from the ADs and head coaches and people I've talked to, if anything, I think it magnifies it even more.
October 10th, 2023 at 7:28 PM ^
There's another team in this conference that has had a ton of success the last couple years, and again, I think it would follow the same argument.
This still amounts to "Michigan is scheduling easy opponents on purpose."
But, he's saying it in the context of, anyone who is smart--including PSU--schedules easy games.
As you say, what is the point of being coy? There are ways to answer this without sounding cryptic.
October 10th, 2023 at 8:02 PM ^
To be fair: WVU in 2023-24, Auburn in 2021-22, Virginia Tech in 2020 & 2025 (2020 never happened because of COVID and then 2025 cancelled: the 2025 slot is still TBD) and Pittsburgh in 2016-19 are not necessarily "easy games."
PSU has scheduled 2 OOC annual buy games, like most everyone else in the B1G does, but for all of 2016-2025 the 3rd OOC games have been credible, mostly regional, foes.
-----
Anyway: the lesson I'm taking from this thread. Going forward, I'll go read someone's entire quote before I respond to a Twitter Tweet.
IMO, once the entire quote is read, there's really nothing at all here.
October 11th, 2023 at 12:09 PM ^
Now how are we supposed to be self-righteous and indignant when you come in here with facts and tell us he wasn't digging Michigan.
October 10th, 2023 at 2:20 PM ^
and they played West Virginia and Delaware. Whatever - it'll get settled on the field.
October 10th, 2023 at 6:16 PM ^
That is utterly hilarious.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:43 PM ^
PSU's OOC for 2025-26 is Nevada, Villanova, Marshall, Temple, and Buffalo
October 10th, 2023 at 4:15 PM ^
watch them lose to Marshall and Buffalo....LOL
October 10th, 2023 at 5:04 PM ^
Marshall can be a tough out just ask the Domers.
October 10th, 2023 at 6:07 PM ^
underrated
October 10th, 2023 at 6:17 PM ^
Murderer’s Row right there lol
October 10th, 2023 at 1:44 PM ^
Meanwhile PSU has faced the murderer's row of.... WVU & Delaware, and will be challenged by the UMass Minutemen this weekend
October 10th, 2023 at 1:45 PM ^
Aren't they playing 1-6 UMass in week 7 leading up to OSU?
Yikes.
October 10th, 2023 at 4:04 PM ^
And they had last week off
October 10th, 2023 at 7:28 PM ^
Is UMASS a rival?
October 10th, 2023 at 1:45 PM ^
Michigan's Sagarin SOS is 69th
Penn State's is 54th
Penn State plays Sagarin #186 UMass this week
October 10th, 2023 at 1:54 PM ^
Nice.
October 10th, 2023 at 2:01 PM ^
To add to this, I was mad about this narrative and compared the average SP+ scores for the first six opponents of USC, Penn State, Michigan and Georgia (i.e., teams who a'int played nobody):
- Georgia* -3.7 overall (average rank 77), 24.4 offense (average rank 76), 27.8 defense (average rank 75)
- Michigan -4.9 overall (average rank 83), 22.0 offense (average rank 95), 26.8 defense (average rank 67)
- Penn State* -5.4 overall (average rank 83), 21.4 offense (average rank 101), 26.4 defense (average rank 68)
- USC -6.2 overall (average rank 87), 23.4 offense (average rank 78), 31.1 defense (average rank 96)
*Georgia and Penn State each played an FCS team (UT Martin and Delaware, respectively), so I gave them an approximate analogous team based on Sagarin ratings (Akron and MTSU, respectively), meaning both the overages probably overstate Georgia and Penn State's difficulty of schedule by a little.
As you can see, the first half of Penn State's schedule was easier on both offense and defense. There are obviously problems with using straight mean, but is Penn State really going to hang their hat on a home game versus a 44th ranked West Virginia?
October 10th, 2023 at 4:42 PM ^
And we got the positive transitive vibe of beating Bowling Green which beat beat Georgia Tech which beat an undefeated Miami.
So we canceled a contract with UCLA. We'll get the Bruins in a couple years. Next year, we make up for every soft non-conference schedule ever. Michigan is playing the equivalent of a playoff schedule just to make the 12-team playoff. Two non-conference playoff teams in Fresno State and Texas and then Oregon, Washington and Southern Cal along with Ohio State as part of conference play as well as Michigan State.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:49 PM ^
Let him talk.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:49 PM ^
He isn't trying to convince Michigan, he's trying to convince the people he's talking to.
I mean, they have Buffalo on the schedule. Buffalo are big, I've seen one.
October 10th, 2023 at 2:49 PM ^
He must have heard that Prime was coaching Buffalo and wanted on the night game hype.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:50 PM ^
Why would you do that, James? Do you enjoy getting the absolute crap knocked out of you?
Take a page out of PJ's book and show a little respect.
October 10th, 2023 at 2:50 PM ^
Yeah, imagine if we were mad at PJ. Hoo boy.
October 10th, 2023 at 2:59 PM ^
Seriously this is a wtf moment from him. What a dumbass.
Everyone is blowing smoke up our ass about how good we are and deservedly so. You are just hoping we start to let it make us complacent. Which doesn’t seem in this team’s nature.
Then you serve Jim Harbaugh a helping of medium rare filet just to make sure we have your attention.
Idiot.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:50 PM ^
frames needs the much dreaded double wet willy to short out his brain
October 10th, 2023 at 1:51 PM ^
Uh oh. He's bringing out the PB&J sandwiches early!
October 10th, 2023 at 1:55 PM ^
with crunchy peanut butter for more 'ooomph' when they hit.
he's also not saying something he knows: that we had a pretty decent OOC schedule lined up and the B10 went bigger10, and we had to scramble to fill in some holes.
but sure, make jim mad. love it. i'm sure that is a winning strategy. do some more, frames, it's pretty great stuff and i'm sure there won't be the slightest repercussion. nah, it'll be fine.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:52 PM ^
Good ole Frames, he never fails.
It is kind of getting to the point where I wish Michigan would face someone with a pulse though, it feels like they're commanding the Death Star and blowing up kids balloons rather than planets like they're capable of. Part of that is on them but we can't help it that most of the B1G should be relegated to the MAC.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:59 PM ^
I kinda find this narrative a little bit annoying that the rest of the Big Ten stinks. When there are superpower teams, there have to be teams that get crushed by the superpowers...or else the superpowers don't exist. Lex Luthor never actually beat Superman; he's just a pain in Superman's ass. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Michigan State, etc. all have good years sometimes and are good enough to knock off the good teams once in a while.
October 10th, 2023 at 4:54 PM ^
I think he just meant this year in which almost everyone in the B1G is worse than usual (except us, probably psu, and maybe rutgers).
October 10th, 2023 at 2:30 PM ^
Looks at next year's schedule. Be careful what you wish for.
October 10th, 2023 at 1:53 PM ^
A lot of coaches bother me but I don't really mind Frames even when he says dumb stuff. Perhaps it is because he almost always gives thoughtful answers to the media when asked actual football questions. A lot of coaches kind of berate the media as stupid even when they are asking good-relevant questions and Frames never does that.
Tried to hate him. Don't hate him.
But this is a dumb take. Michigan is playing at Texas next year.