PSU AD Joyner to "Retire"
So what was the problem PSU had with AD Dave Joyner? He was hired to replace the ever admired Tim Curley in 2011. He obviously brought in two top flight coaches in O'Brien and Franklin.
It's too early to call Franklin a top flight coach.
He led Vanderbilt to three straight bowl appearances while playing in arguably the toughest conference in the nation, and this is Vanderbilt we are talking about. He went into the job with little talent and left there with two straight 9-4 seasons... Vandy was in worse of a state than Kentucky was last season and had very little in the way of recruiting, yet Franklin was able to build them into a team that the likes of Tennessee and Georgia fear.
Now by no means is Franklin an elite coach yet, and it should be interesting to see what he does at a much larger school with easily much more pressure to win. However, I don't think you should be so quick to write him off as a top flight coach. He isn't there yet, but he's not too far off, either.
He only beat 4 teams that finished the season with a winning record while he was at Vandy. It's not like he was regularly beating the good teams from the best conference.
True, but it was four more SEC teams that Vanderbilt beat then than in the thirty to forty years before Franklin arrived there. Vandy has appeared in seven bowl games, and Franklin is responsible for three of them (Two out of their four wins)... Vandy was basically ship that was almost impossible to turn around. Franklin did it while being in the best conference top to bottom in the nation.
An apt comparison here is Al Golden the former coach of my beloved Temple Owls (North Philly, yo). Golden was young, hungry, talented and a phenomenal recruiter given what he had to work with and Temple's Vanderbilt levels plus of historical mediocrity. Golden took the team to respectability, recruited a bunch of NFL talent (how I miss you, Bernard Pierce) and then took his talents to Coral Gables and the U. At Miami, Golden has been solid if not spectacular bringing in strong recruiting classes but only fair results by Miami standards. This will be James Franklin's destiny.
Rich Rodriguez.
Paging Section 1
Rodriguez mention noted.
There are many MGoBloggers that would gladly dump Hoke for Franklin. I also don't think you can deny that he was very solid at Vandy.
Bullshit.
But I think we still can do a lot better than Franklin.
A lot of people wanted us to dump Beilein and rehire Amaker too after JB had been here for 3 years.
I agree there was time that people wanted to dump JB. But to rehire TA?? No fucking way.
Yea, people said that. It was probably because Amaker beat JB and did pretty well at Harvard. JB also apparently only had one good flash in the pan season and two mediocre seasons. Sound familar?
Uhhhh.... Yeah, that never happened. Were there some of us who were unsure the Beilein system would work? Absolutely.
But I absolutely challenge you to find anyone who was saying Amaker should have been brought back. Prove it.
I wouldn't, Hoke isn't an asshole like Franklin.
Franklin feels he is competing for recruits with OSU not Michigan. What do you want him to be? A lolly pop boy?
I want him to be a respectable guy who follows the rules and not be a guy who tells a Vanderbilt rape victim that he wants her to be part of his sexy football mistress recruiting team because all other SEC teams do it.
PSU certainly has a history harboring rape apologists.
PSU fans, players, and coaches dislike Joyner for many reasons. Here's one John U Bacon article:
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/road-saturday/201401/bill-obrien-penn-s…
Thanks - that's interesting.
Franklin has done well with recruiting but 3 years in the minimum lithmus.
(1) Joyner was on the PSU BOT in November 2011. PSU of course needed an AD in November 2011 because of Curley's involvement in the Sandusky affair. That's basically how Joyner got the job --- an "emergency stop gap hire" of sorts. "Stop gap" are the two important words. Much like previous PSU President Dr. Erickson, Joyner was always meant as a "couple-year bridge" AD to get beyond the worst of the Sandusky mess. Once Erickson retired (he left last month, Dr. Barron is already installed as new PSU President), Joyner's depature was merely a matter of time.
(2) Joyner fired the fencing coach a few months ago, and the fencing coach (Kaidanov) has come back and sued, with both Penn State and David Joyner specifically listed as the defendants. This was a highly successful fencing coach (12 NCAA team Championships),
Rumor (everything that follows in this paragraph is rumor, PSU officially has no word on this) is that in summer 2013 an athletic secretary saw a fencer doing drugs. That secretary reported the incident up the chain per PSU athletic policy (some of it in place as a direct result of the Freeh Report). "Up the chain per PSU athletic policy" however did NOT mean telling Kaidanov. The fencer passed all drug tests and was cleared of any wrong-doing. But in the meantime, Kaidanov berated the secretary for not telling him first. When Joyner found out about this, Kaidanov was eventually fired.
Anyway, that's a long story. But the dynamic (university policy ensuring that a coach isn't the first to "gain knowledge" of an incident, that coach getting angry when he learns he was bypassed) is definitely interesting in the wake of November 2011. I am intrigued as to where that story will go.
There is a very vocal segment of the PSU fanbase that have, what may be best described as a scorched earth policy when it comes to anyone who was on the BOT that fired Joe Paterno. None of the alumni elected members of the BOT are left they have all ben replaced by candidates who hold the view the BOT was wrong to fire Paterno and was wrong to accept the Freeh report. They hated Joyner for being part of the group that fired Paterno and hated him even more for his post-Freeh report comments that he agreed with the conclusions of the Freeh report. To them Joyner's hires are mere blind luck.
The BOT vote on 11-November-2011 was unanimous. I've always felt that firing Joe was a tough and sure-to-be unpopular decision, but also an absolutely necessary decision. A lot of the haters just cannot got beyond the fact that the decision was "absolutely necessary." (could you imagine Paterno coaching that game vs. Nebraska?!?!?!)
The new PSU BOT dynamic is very interesting. The "very vocal segment" now has all their people on the board --- including a couple fellas who aren't lightweights and also have rather "interesting" backgrounds (e.g., former Sallie Mae CEO Al Lord). Going to be a big-time civil war on the BOT over the next few years. Because those folks agendas/interests are still completey opposite the agendas/interests of the rest of the BOT.
They are very active, as you mentioned. They got their people on the board. They are trying to push back whever they can. They seemed initally happy with Barron, since they thought he handled the NCAA well with the Winston issue , but have cooled to him recently. It seems as though he would need to try, convict and execute Louis Freeh, Cynthia Bladwin and Mark Emmert for crimes against Nittany to make some of them happy. That and get the statue back up and the wins restored. Also have the phrase Move On punishable by public flogging.
I'm not that familiar with PA politics and I don't want this to divert to a political discussion, but they are also actively opposing Corbett and seem to be single issue voters. Those that are devout Rs, at least at this point, claim they will forget about their feelings on other social issues, just to get rid of him. I know they are trying to push for bills in the PA legislature to reform the BOT. The latest BOT committee assignments came out and they are unhappy that their new folks are not on anything of significance.
As for firing Paterno, I do think the BOT might have put Paterno on Administrative leave pending the investigation. I feel Paterno backed them into a corner with his statements about stepping down at the end of the season. I also think he deserved to be fired in person and not given a phone number to call. These folks also seem to think that public outcry would have died out over time and PSU failed to stick to its guns.
Please stop!
As someone in the middle of reading "Fourth and Long," this seems like a good move for Penn St.
I know Bacon is just one person, but Joyner, along with Jay Paterno, were the clear bad guys of the book.