UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- When their offices were next to each other at the University of Maryland in the early 2000s, Bill O'Brien always remembered James Franklin because of his work ethic and his personality.
"He was very smart. Very energetic. Had a great energy, was good with the players. Smart in a lot of different areas," O'Brien said on Saturday. The Texans' head coach was at Penn State for the program's annual chalk talk. It marked O'Brien's first time back in the football building since he left in 2014.
"Good coach, could recruit. Hard worker, very hard worker. Up early, stayed late and a good personality," O'Brien continued. "I think whatever your personality is, you have to have something to be able to be a head coach and I think he had all those traits and obviously he started that at Vanderbilt and now what he's done here has been fantastic."
Little did both know that more than a decade later Franklin would call O'Brien for advice about the vacant Penn State head coaching job. Now both are forever woven into the fabric of this place for what they did and continue to do for a program on the rise. Strolling through the Lasch Football Building on Saturday afternoon there were new sights to behold for O'Brien.
The Nittany Lions' wall of All-America honorees featured fresh photos and the state of the art nutrition bar next to the team's weight room didn't even exist when O'Brien last set foot in Happy Valley. As he walked the building ahead of taking in a spring practice, the memories of his two seasons flooded back.
"I just told the high school coaches, I said, 'Relative to college football, this is football heaven,'" O'Brien said. "You come through this building, you see the lettermen wall, you see the guys coming out of meetings, all the changes that James [Franklin] has made in the building are incredible. ... This is what it's all about. I have great memories here."
Bill O’Brien on his return visit to Penn State: pic.twitter.com/JdhS7Xp8WE
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) April 7, 2018
No players on the current Penn State roster played under O'Brien, and the program's trajectory, complete with a Big Ten title, Rose Bowl appearance and Fiesta Bowl victory skyrocketed since he helped hold the program together during its darkest days.
Keeping Penn State afloat during the sanction era is something O'Brien will always be proud of and the '2012' plastered on the Beaver Stadium facade across the street is a permanent reminder of the players and the coach who defied the odds to keep Penn State football alive.
Many of those relationships, with players, coaches and personnel, are ones O'Brien still maintains. Players like quarterback Christian Hackenberg and tight end Adam Breneman, whose commitments helped reaffirm that top prospects would still stay at Penn State despite scholarship limitations and bowl bans, have reconnected with O'Brien whether at NFL events or, in Breneman's case, at the Senior Bowl.
Figuring out how to build those relationships during his first head coaching job is something O'Brien learned at Penn State and took with him to Houston.
"The other thing I learned here was about character," he said. "I learned about if you have guys who have great character who are mentally tough, who are physically tough that love the game, love to practice, you're going to win games. I think that's something that I've tried to carry into Houston. Having guys with high character and maybe a guy runs a 4.2 and this guy over here runs a 4.4, but this guy who runs a 4.2 is always in trouble, but this guy who runs a 4.4 is a guy that works hard, wants to try and get better every day, that's what we had here. That's what we had here. We had a bunch of guys that loved to practice, that loved Penn State."
Seeing Franklin continue to build upon the foundation that O'Brien and so many of the names of All-America honorees etched on the walls of the football building worked to try and hold together is something O'Brien kept tabs on from afar.
The success that's quickly followed here, for a program that has been referred to as a "sleeping giant," didn't shock O'Brien. Before he left for Houston, he said he had a sense that the sanctions would potentially be lifted early and since then the Lions' return to a level playing field -- and the results that followed -- has been nothing short of remarkable.
"There was a time when the sanctions first came out that they said this program would never come back. There were people that said this program would basically be a Division II, a Division I-AA program, whatever the word is for that now," he said. "We all looked at each other that were here and looked at this wall and look at the All-Americans and knew like that was never going to happen. ... We had the right people in place to bridge that gap to where they are now."
QUICK HITS
• Interestingly enough, O'Brien's return to town comes on the same day when HBO's movie about Joe Paterno and the scandal is set to air. The film will be released at 8 p.m. I've yet to see it but do plan to tune in to see how Al Pacino does in the role of Paterno. If there's an appearance by a frazzled student reporter, let's hope it's not me.
The Paterno family already issued a statement ahead of the release, saying that scenes from the fictional movie bear "no resemblance to what actually happened."
• I've watched most of the documentaries about the scandal that've come out over the years. While I think many missed the mark, in part because they found students or characters who were more extreme than most, HBO's trailer looked intriguing and the budget, of course, will make this a little different. No, there really isn't much buzz around here about the film, largely because some of these students on campus were in middle school during the scandal. That reality made me feel old.
• Penn State's players were breaking out of meetings while the media was waiting to talk with O'Brien Saturday afternoon. That should be practice No. 9 of 15. With two weeks to go until the Blue-White game there's still a lot to learn about this team, especially when it comes to developing depth and who some of the other younger players are who've impressed this spring.
• Franklin will meet with the media again Wednesday evening following practice and I'll have plenty of coverage between now and then.