Penn State trying to maximize return on investment with upcoming running backs coach hire
James Franklin’s staff took a hit Sunday when it was reported that running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider would be taking a position at Notre Dame. And now, as his team is preparing to start winter workouts and getting ready for spring ball in March, he will have to make another addition to his staff.
Seider’s replacement will be the second new assistant next year after defensive coordinator Jim Knowles was hired to replace Tom Allen, who left for Clemson. That change was made roughly in line with the usual hiring cycle for college football.
This one, however, was caused by those at the next level. Deland McCullough was hired by the Las Vegas Raiders, leaving Notre Dame with an opening at running backs coach, which ultimately led to the Irish hiring Seider.
And now Franklin will have to make a hire in short order to round out hit staff.
“The NFL hiring process has really changed schools like Penn State because what happens is, you either lose a coach to the NFL very late in the process and now you have to go hire someone who’s probably already signed a contract. Which can become costly in terms of buyouts and things like that because it’s so late in the process and all the best guys are typically tied up at that point,” Franklin said Tuesday afternoon. “Or an NFL team hires somebody else, and then they take your guy to fill their spot.”
The position should be an attractive one, with the Nittany Lions returning two of the best running backs in college football in Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton next year. That can impact who Franklin seeks out to fill the role, but so can the current state of the team.
Penn State is expected to be one of the leading contenders to win the national title next season and could even begin the year as the No. 1 team in the country. That means it’s imperative that there isn’t much of a learning curve for whoever replaces Seider and is tasked with helping Allen and Singleton take the next steps in their development.
“In hiring, in my mind, it’s about how are you going to get the return on your investment,” Franklin said. “What I mean by that is, there’s some young guys that you can hire that are on an upward trajectory, are going to have really good careers, but you may not get the return on your investment until year two. And then there’s other guys that are much more seasoned, but you want to make sure that they haven’t gotten to the point of their career where their career is starting to decline and go in the opposite direction. So you kind of find that sweet spot of a guy that’s got enough experience, both in coaching and in recruiting at this level, and that we’re going to get the return on our investment quickly. Because we’re just not a at a point as a program to come in and and have to wait a year or two while we’re still developing somebody.”
Altering the offseason schedule
Penn State’s deep run in the College Football Playoff will have an impact on when it gets its usual winter and spring work in. The Nittany Lions played their last game on Jan. 9, leading Franklin and his staff to push back winter workouts and make alterations to how it will handle spring practice.
Franklin has usually held anywhere from eight to 10 winter workouts each season for the players, but this year that number will drop to six due to the increased workload and time constraints caused by the 2024 season’s length.
That has also led to spring ball beginning later than usual, on March 25, but more importantly it will mean fewer reps for some of the players who saw the most work this season. That’s not all too dissimilar from how Penn State has handled things in the past, but it could be more widespread than usual this year. And that could cause its own set of issues, with Knowles joining the staff and the defensive players needing reps.
Franklin said that’s something they will be considering when determining each player’s workload.
“With Coach Knowles here, that becomes challenging too, because they need reps within that [defense],” Franklin said. “But there’s ways of doing that, making sure the vets are getting all the jog through reps and things like that.”
One of the things that isn’t going anywhere, though, is the Blue-White game. The team’s annual spring game, which will take place this year on April 26, will still happen even if it doesn’t necessarily look the same.
And while those changes aren’t finalized, Franklin said he understands the importance of the event itself and why it will happen.
“We will still have the spring game, because I know what it means to this community and the hotels and the bars and the restaurants and the tailgating and all of it,” Franklin said. “We’re working on that now. We we may do some more events that we’re still working through. I don’t want to speak on them too early. ... We’ll wait to talk about that in more detail, so that myself, the coaches, the administration, everybody’s on the same page. Because I think a lot of you guys know at a place like Penn State, I locked my date in for the spring game a while ago because there’s so many things at the university that are built around the game in terms of development, fundraising, all types of events that the university has. So, we don’t have a whole lot of flexibility there.”
Bringing in Knowles
While Knowles’ addition came at a more ideal time than this one, it was not necessarily an easy process. In fact, Franklin became concerned that it could fall apart.
“We did not have a deal yet, even the day the deal was being announced by everybody that it was done, it was not done,” Franklin said. “I was concerned that it being announced may screw up our ability to get the deal done, but I didn’t know it was being reported everywhere that he was coming, and we didn’t have a signed contract until way after that.”
The hire was ultimately aided by multiple factors in Penn State’s favor.
Franklin had already had a relationship with Knowles after trying to hire him a few years prior, and the Penn State administration was in full alignment on bringing the new defensive coordinator in.
That can make a massive difference in searches like this — with multiple top programs competing for the same candidate, as happened with Knowles.
