With Franklin at Penn State, the Nittany Lions have upped their recruiting game, and have begun to push Virginia Tech and others for Maryland's and Northern Virginia's top prospects. Give credit where it's due, Franklin's idea to exploit a loophole and hold football camps in the south is brilliant: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10998077/sec-coaches-want....
Franklin and his Penn State staff plan to coach and work with prospects at camps at Georgia State University in Atlanta and Stetson University in Deland, Florida.
"Our thought was that the Big Ten and NCAA rules allow you to do these things," Franklin told reporters earlier this month. "And we wanted to not only have camps on our campus -- which we're going to have a bunch of them -- but also be able to maybe take the Penn State brand and be able to take it to part of the country [where] maybe young men and families wouldn't be able to make it to our place. And I'm fired up about it. It seems like the high school coaches are as well."
Franklin, the former Vanderbilt coach, has drawn the biggest headlines for having his staff work with high school recruits fairly close to the University of Georgia and University of Florida campuses.
But other schools also are taking advantage of working camps off campus. This summer, the staffs from Oklahoma State and New Mexico are scheduled to work camps in several Texas towns -- Belton, San Antonio, Pearland, Spring, Rockwall and Dallas -- and Iowa's coaching staff is scheduled to work in Chicago at Lake Forest College.
By comparison, SEC rules prohibit coaches at SEC schools from "guest coaching" more than 50 miles from campus.
"It continues to be more of an issue," Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said.
SEC coaches are mad, so you know he's doing something right.
Additionally, 247Sports reported that, "Notre Dame is working with Georgia State to hold a satellite football camp in Atlanta during the summer of 2015."
This is savvy outside the box thinking.
Comments
Which means the NCAA will act quickly to change the rules.
If Nick Saban isn't happy, the NCAA won't be happy.
Thoughts that immediately ran through my head
1) Good for Franklin making the SEC schools irate. Well played sir.
2) What are the rules that the ACC have on this? VT could easily hold camps in our three in-state recruiting hotbeds (757, DMV, RVA) to start, then expand into the southeast & PA. This is probably going to become a thing now, expect Notre Dame, tOSU, Michigan etc. to follow suit.
doesn't uva already do this?
There is an NCAA rule about sponsoring camps/recruiting events more than 50 miles from your school or outside your state (not sure of the exact rule) B1G also has rules about it. The way he is getting around it is by having another school host the event with him invited. Basically he is using a loophole to get around the intention of the rules. How would you like it if Alabama or LSU was at a camp hosted by Univ. of Richmond or JMU?
If we were holding camps at Carnegie Mellon and Cal Tech, I wouldn't have a problem with 'Bama and LSU doing this. It's an arms race, as long we are on par with everyone else, I don't really care.
That's the key. Making sure everyone is on a level playing field and everything is fair. Franklin is pushing the limits and I expect there will be a push back to clarify the rules or to change them.
Franklin is by most accounts not a very good person but the dude is a great recruiter and coach. I don't like him very much but I have to respect him.
Can you elaborate on the 'not a good person' thing?
Not that I disagree, but living in State College means I need to have ample ammunition for when the environment gets hostile.
Many Vandy fans said that before he left that he was a jerk off the field. Here is an article proving that he is not the best of dudes.
The article you linked cherry picked that statement a little. He went on to say that if you can walk into a room and convince a contested woman to pick you, there's a good chance you'll also be able to walk into a room and convince a contested recruit to pick you. Still not the best thing to say, but I think it's at least slightly better in context.
Agreed. Makes more sense now. Not quite as objectionable.
So if Penn State/Franklin is not "sponsoring" the event, what's in it for Georgia State to allow them to attend/be invited? This is probably a loophole that will be closed up pretty quickly
What I heard was that the caliber of players showing up would likely be a lot higher and give GS an opportunity to maybe get a shot at some better recruits.
The rules are intended to prevent big schools from going outside their own territory and to maintain a level playing field in recruiting. Could you imagine what would happen if bama held a camp in Louisana or LSU in AL? There might be riots.
I can see some SEC fans showing up in Georgia with protest signs about carpet baggers.
LSU involved in a riot? Nah, that never happens.
Be gone with you, James Franklin, leave the Commonwealth's recruits alone!
I read somewhere (SI I think) that the SEC coaches and presidents are going to consider allowing coaches to work camps that are not sponsored by their schools to allow the SEC to do this, too.
Not sure what it would gain them overall, because they don't really need to go anywhere to see the best talent, but it would even everything up.
Maybe we can do this at ECU. We might as well get something out of the 80 year contract we signed to play them.