OT: more PSU sex abuse allegations
Per ESPN, former PSU DB (and PSU legacy) Isaiah Humphries is suing the school, Frames and others for allowing a sexually-abusive environment to exist in the football program:
Interesting comment where the accuser says Frames told him Micah Parsons was getting paid:
>>The investigator wrote: "Mr. Humphries added that Coach Franklin came and said, 'Don't talk to the police because Micah is his start [sic] player and makes money, so if he gets in trouble, he's gone,' meaning Mr. Humphries would be gone."
November 20th, 2020 at 9:41 AM ^
Wowsers.....I dare say this could be the end of the line for Frames. This shit does not fly anymore, and never should have.
November 20th, 2020 at 9:44 AM ^
JoePa knew.
November 20th, 2020 at 9:58 AM ^
Yes, but in defense to Paterno allowing decades of child tape to go unreported, he won a lot of football games.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:02 AM ^
Absolutely. Did Bo?
November 20th, 2020 at 10:30 AM ^
Sounds like he knew something and probably didn't do enough IMO.
November 20th, 2020 at 11:07 AM ^
Sure sounds like it so far. Michigan needs to act if the evidence shows he did.
November 20th, 2020 at 1:34 PM ^
Sadly now days we tend to either ignore evidence or make up our own evidence to fit our desired narratives.
November 20th, 2020 at 5:47 PM ^
I am astonished at how many people are willing to assume the worst about others without any direct evidence. The guy who talked to Bo, according to his own statements, said Bo was outraged and told him to march over to see Canham right away. We don’t know what Canham did or didn’t do, what he and Bo may have discussed, what investigation or inquiry Canham conducted. Why people are willing to jump to the conclusion Bo acted out of character to willfully or blindly allow abuse of his kids is the same attitude that made Salem legendary.
November 20th, 2020 at 6:47 PM ^
That's pretty much the 'Paterno Defense'.
November 20th, 2020 at 2:59 PM ^
fuck psu and all their joepa loving delusional fans.
November 20th, 2020 at 9:32 PM ^
I think those are Pitt fans. It's a pretty tasteless way to troll an opponent.
November 20th, 2020 at 3:26 PM ^
As a Temple alum I approve this message:
November 20th, 2020 at 9:54 AM ^
When we are talking about news, we probably should refer to him as James Franklin and not Frames. I legit thought you were referencing a player named Frames.
November 20th, 2020 at 12:52 PM ^
I also do not understand where the nickname Frames came from or what it refers to.
November 20th, 2020 at 1:03 PM ^
I believe it is because someone made the decision that Frames Janklin is more befitting than James Franklin due to unconventional decision-making while coaching football games
November 20th, 2020 at 1:34 PM ^
Is that really a thing? i thought it was a typo
November 20th, 2020 at 2:49 PM ^
You're probably wondering what's up with this Tacopants thing, also.
November 20th, 2020 at 3:31 PM ^
It was just a dig Brian made on a few podcasts. Frames Janklin instead of James Franklin.
November 20th, 2020 at 3:56 PM ^
Not to be confused with Yed Jork.
November 20th, 2020 at 4:00 PM ^
It's spread beyond Mgo though. I've seen it used on Black Shoe Diaries as well
November 20th, 2020 at 2:57 PM ^
exactly. OP with a huge failure here.
November 20th, 2020 at 9:56 AM ^
Jesus Christ. You’d think if ANY school would be hyper vigilant about any hint of sexual abuse in its football program, and stomp that shit out at the slightest suggestion, it would have been Penn State.
November 20th, 2020 at 11:56 AM ^
Why? Half of these fuck-ups don't think they did anything wrong the FIRST time around.
November 20th, 2020 at 12:24 PM ^
Given that Frames brought a sexual (gang rape) scandal with him TO PSU, from Vandy. . . maybe not.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/10858666/james-franklin-contacted-alleged-rape-victim-vanderbilt-commodores
November 21st, 2020 at 4:32 PM ^
I said at the time that it was the worst hire by any organization ever, anywhere. The optics alone were horrific under the circumstances, never mind the risk of something like this happening.
But it won't matter. They won't do anything, and if they do he'll land on his feet in a year or two. Somebody else with a culture problem (Baylor?) will bring him on board.
November 20th, 2020 at 1:18 PM ^
Given how the NCAA basically pussied out on the punishment they were going give PSU for the Sandusky scandal, they probably felt pretty fine about it
November 20th, 2020 at 1:35 PM ^
The actual people in charge did not change seats. It's happening at Michigan(my reference is solely to the Football program however)
November 20th, 2020 at 10:00 AM ^
These allegations are actually months old and have mostly been debunked as he said/they said. The "he said" is the former player, the "they said" is everyone else involved in the alleged incidents. Someone is just laying groundwork to fire Franklin if he doesn't beat UM and MSU.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:10 AM ^
It is a 'he said/they said' situation because nothing was documented (or released) by the school. But I read the whole story, and it reads as believable. I have no doubt, based solely on the linked article, that the three players alleged did, actually, haze Humphries (and probably others) and that Franklin said what he's alleged to have said. The article 'makes sense', in that everything in it is a believable situation.
As to why the rest of the locker room doesn't speak up, well, 'boys will be boys'. I don't doubt that most thought the hazing was good, clean fun. Most of those that didn't wouldn't speak up because they wanted to remain part of the team, and (probably) weren't really targets themselves. Humphries seems to have been picked out as a guy that didn't like it, couldn't laugh it off, and was generally upset by it - classic reasons for the class bully to bully.
'He said/they said'... This is how bullying thrives.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
Ya know, speaking as a guy who played sports just in high school, I never quite understood the concept of "group showers". Like why the fuck weren't there/aren't there stalls? Who the hell ever thought having 30 or so naked young men in a single room should be standard protocol? Fucking stupid concept from the beginning. These situations should never even have the possibility of happening. The shower/changing area should be a separate space from the team locker room. Problem solved
November 20th, 2020 at 11:08 AM ^
It can be both: true and wanting to un-ass Franklin.
November 20th, 2020 at 12:09 PM ^
Sort of true. Many of the allegations did come out way back at the start of the year (pre-CoronaVirus!). But some of them are new, and are now public because ESPN got their hands on an internal PSU Title IX report that was likely leaked.
That said, this is where PSU is right now:
(1) The football team looking very out of sorts in 2020. I know PSU isn't the only team like this during this challenging year. But it is true.
(2) Franklin looking completely disengaged (even worse than the team). He has been openly speaking about some "personal issues" he is going through. His family is not in Central Pennsylvania with him this fall, they are instead splitting time between Florida & Colorado.
(3) A number of players leaving the program, most notably Parsons, who is mentioned in the report.
(4) The Title IX report being evidently leaked. The leak would necessarily have to be internal.
(5) The basketball coach being fired recently --- and kind of suddenly, supposedly because of some other set of concerns beyond the ones that initially surfaced with him.
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Now, each of the 5 items above could theoretically happen in isolation, with no ties to the other 4 items. There's no reason they have to be interlinked. But one could certainly draw up theories that DO link some of the 5 items in various ways.
FWIW, I am not generally a big believer in coincidences. So if I had to bet, there's probably something interesting going on here. Your theory of "laying the groundwork to fire Franklin" is certainly possible though. So are other theories. As for me, I don't really know yet.
November 20th, 2020 at 12:18 PM ^
This is interesting... Although I can't reconcile how the bball coach and football things would coincide, they don't have to. I can very readily, however, see a coincidence between Frames being checked out and his family not being at home with him. I have no regard for Franklin as a person, but I do hope his personal life isn't going to shit. I wouldn't wish that on anyone...
November 20th, 2020 at 12:29 PM ^
Yeah, the basketball item is the "which one of these items is most unlike the other" on my list.
But it DID happen recently, as a result of an internal investigation, and it was a bit unique in terms of timing (right before the season, though weirdly not the first time that has happened w/ a PSU basketball coach: see Bruce Parkhill in 1995).
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Franklin's daughter does have sickle cell, which puts her at greater risk for COVID. I'm not entirely sure why that would necessitate being in Florida (they can quarantine in State College too, I'd think?), but they are in Florida.
Franklin's weekly Tuesday press conferences --- he's gotten more and more emotional by the week and is, IMO, almost using the press as a psychiatrist in terms of talking about being away from family. It's been notable from my POV.
It's been a challenging year for many, for all kinds of reasons.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:15 AM ^
Maybe Michigan needs to get an early start on searching for our next coach? PSU might be looking to snatch up a top coaching candidate ASAP.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:17 AM ^
Franklin did the same thing at Vandy with a series of sexual assaults by his players and then lied about his knowledge on the stand. Not remotely surprised this continues.
Related side not - I will never get over the PSU Rose Bowl commentary where (I think) Gus Johnson said "hopefully PSU can finally start healing now" in relation to their massive sexual abuse cover-up. Like, I got the sentiment that these players weren't involved with that, but I don't think playing in a bowl game really "heals" a community.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
Franklin mentioned the "healing process" at some point too during the 2016 season (may have been after they won the B1G Championship game).
The fact of the matter is, it sadly probably does "heal" the community. The community where winning football games is all that matters.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:48 AM ^
I, too, find any mention of healing nauseating. The only people who need to heal are those who were abused and that has nothing to do with football.
November 20th, 2020 at 11:22 AM ^
Could not agree more. You'd hope to hear the words "we need to start healing" but that it would be completely separate from the context of winning football games and followed immediately with words such as "by having serious and honest discussions about how we got to where what happened happened and continue those very serious and humbling conversations about how this university and the culture allowed that to happen and using those conversations to put in place guardrails to ensure this can never happen again".
It's just so odd "healing" in this case has anything to do with winning a game and less to do about real ground work and hard conversations.
November 20th, 2020 at 5:31 PM ^
Healing implies PSU was wounded. PSU wasn't wounded, PSU was the ones doing the damage. Better terms would have been rehabilitated or burnt to the ground and rebuilt. Claiming healing is a huge fuck you to all the kids who were raped and actually need healing.
November 20th, 2020 at 3:35 PM ^
I definitely remember he said that after the B1G Championship Game. Thats probably what the other commenter is referring too. (Rose Bowl was the same season and Gus Johnson would not have been calling an ABC game plus PSU lost to USC in that Rose Bowl.)
November 20th, 2020 at 2:55 PM ^
That was an all-time terrible comment by Johnson.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:27 AM ^
Gee, I wonder if there will be any consequences.
November 20th, 2020 at 11:31 AM ^
No statue for Frames?
November 20th, 2020 at 10:50 AM ^
Sometimes losing out on a big name recruit is addition by subtraction. OSU fans were super disappointed when Meyer stopped recruiting Parsons ostensibly due to an unapproved visit to the ESPN Gameday set. Who knows what's true, but that guy sounds like a cancer.
November 20th, 2020 at 10:53 AM ^
Eye Gouge?
Go Blue.
November 20th, 2020 at 11:05 AM ^
"I'm gonna Sandusky you"
That whole mess is now a joke at PSU?
November 20th, 2020 at 11:33 AM ^
They won a B1G title after that while debacle so, in the minds of PSU fans, alumni, coaches, players, administration, and cheerleaders ...... absolutely
November 20th, 2020 at 12:10 PM ^
The victory over OSU B1G title was the "healing" from the Sandusky atrocities.