James Franklin: To build a championship culture, programs need to do these things
Before building Penn State back into an annual Big Ten title contender, James Franklin got his start as a head coach at Vanderbilt after a journey as an assistant and coordinator that took him to brief stops at each conference in the Power Five.
In three seasons in Nashville, Franklin went 6-7 in year one before putting together back-to-back 9-win seasons, leading the 'Dores to Top 25 finishes each of those last two years.
As an assistant, Franklin climbed the ladder the traditional way, starting at the small college level and even doing a coaching stint in Europe where he first cut his teeth as a play caller before getting his chance at the major college level coaching wide receivers at Washington State in the late-90's.
All that to say, Franklin's wealth of experience at a number of different stops has shaped his vision on how to build a championship culture. At the podium recently, Franklin touched on the type of things that often get overlooked that go into building that championship culture.
"It's all the details. It's all the little things. It is finding a way to overcome adversity consistently."
"It's going to class consistently. It's getting to meetings on time. It's having your phone turned off during meetings. It's not settling for a B in a class when you could have gotten an A. It's taking notes in every single meeting. Every. Single. Meeting. Not because the coaches told you to, but because you want to be great. It's the coaches making sure that is the standard. We don't settle. We don't make excuses. We don't allow it to happen."
"There is a way to be unbelievably successful in life and in football, then that is what we're going to do. We have let little things slip by, but that ain't happening, because those little things that slip by, that's one point last year, and that's one point this year. It's not happening anymore."
"You guys thought I was a psychopath in the past...you have no idea. Don't take that the wrong way. I'm not saying from a negative standpoint. I'm not a negative guy. I am going to make sure that our program, that we do EVERYTHING right, and we grow every single day, and we challenge ourselves every single day."
See Franklin's full thoughts below.
https://twitter.com/coachwilcox55/status/1188829200242921473?s=12
