Josh Pate: The ‘James Franklin is overrated’ crowd is wrong

The James Franklin narrative is impossible to escape from every time Penn State plays a top-10 team, which it will be doing this week with a home game against Michigan, no. 3 in the College Football Playoff rankings and no. 2 in the US LBM Coaches Poll. Franklin’s history against top-ranked competition is not for the faint of heart and it rears its ugly head every time Franklin is heading into a big game like this.

Franklin is 3-16 against top 10 teams in his career at Penn State, but Josh Pate of Late Kick points out that Franklin was a favorite in just 1 of those 19 games, and Penn State actually won two of those matchups.

“If you think James Franklin is overrated, you are wrong,” Pate said. “If you think he should win more, that’s a different conversation.”

Franklin has what seems like a small contingent of defenders who always make the same argument. Franklin’s record is impossible to ignore, but it just barely scratches the surface. It is worth examining just how many of those games Franklin was expected to win. As Pate points out, the beating lines suggest that has rarely been the case.

Penn State is an underdog at home this weekend against the two-time defending Big Ten champion Wolverines. That means Penn State has been favored to win just 1 of the last 20 games against a top-10 team, most of which have been played against Ohio State and Michigan.

“If they go on to lose this game Saturday… I’ll have people tell me he’s overrated. That’s not what that word means,” Pate said. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

Franklin is 86-37 in his 10th year at Penn State. Although he has coached Penn State to just 1 Big Ten championship, he has also led the Nittany Lions to 4 New Years Six bowl games with 3 wins (1-1 in the Rose Bowl, 1-0 in the Fiesta Bowl and 1-0 in the Cotton Bowl). Franklin currently has Penn State in a position to make another New Years Six bowl game this season, although a loss this weekend could put that in some jeopardy.

What do you think of Franklin? Do you believe Franklin is overrated or, as Pate suggests, is leaning more toward underrated?

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Story originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire