ALTOONA, Pa. -- James Franklin was asked point blank Wednesday evening why he doesn't just come out and say he's not interested when his name comes up for another job, as has been the case this week with so much USC speculation.
Mike Poorman from StateCollege.com asked Franklin this in a media session after practice Wednesday: "Is there any reason you just don't go, hey listen, I'm not interested. I'm staying."
"I have. I have," Franklin said. "But I've also found and tracked this over time that really no matter what you say, people aren't happy with. So I've decided that I'm going to handle this internally and talk to our team. It happens every single year. I'm not worried about distractions in the media and with the fans. I'm worried about my team. So I talk my staff about it, I talk to the players about it, the leadership council, in detail. But I think that's the best approach."
A lot of coaches take a similar approach to Franklin, sort of dodging the question rather than coming flat out and saying, "No, I'm not interested."
Then again, Urban Meyer did exactly that Wednesday when he was asked about the USC job. Meyer is in his first season as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars and was asked about the USC situation.
"There’s no chance," Meyer said. "I’m here and committed to trying to build this organization.”
What these coaches say can be taken with a grain of salt in these situations. The best example came when NIck Saban, then head coach of the Miami Dolphins, was linked to the Alabama job in 2006.
"I guess I have to say it: I'm not going to be the Alabama coach," Saban said on Dec. 21, 2006.
A mere 38 days later, Saban was indeed hired by Alabama.
Perhaps the biggest reason why Franklin won't just come out and say he's not going to USC is that, in many ways, it serves him better to not do so.
Having his name come up in connection with other jobs gives Franklin -- or just about any coach, really -- more leverage at his current school. That leverage can be used to get a raise for the coach, to get raises for assistant coaches or to get more money for facilities upgrades.
At Penn State, Franklin has used his leverage for all three of those things in recent years. He's gotten more money for himself, coordinators Brent Pry and Mike Yurcich are now believed to be getting paid more than $1.5 million apiece, and there are upgrades taking place to the Lasch Building.
As David Jones from PennLive pointed out Wednesday, being in demand is very good for college coaches, and they know it. Jones wrote:
"The coaches' agents love it. And the coaches themselves don't exactly mind. It drives up their value, creates extensions and new richer contracts across the board. The agent gets his cut. Everybody's happy."
A lot of the whealings and dealings with coaching searches take place with agents, and often times just as coaches are saying or insinuating that they'll be staying put at their current job, their agent is busy behind the scenes making inquiries and negotiating with other schools.
That's just how the business works.
Franklin was asked a couple of more questions Wednesday night about the USC situation. The first question, from Audrey Snyder of The Athletic, was about what he's telling recruits.
"We'll address it with the recruits, as well," Franklin said. "So my conversations with recruits and my conversations with my team, we'll have.
"Having conversations with the media and having conversations with anybody else, I'm concerned about my team and my future team. And when I say my future team, I'm talking about the recruits."
The final USC-related question came from Ben Jones of StateCollege.com and centered around misinformation that can get out about coaching speculation.
"I'd love to talk about Auburn," Franklin said. "That's the third question we've had about it. I'd love to talk about Auburn.
"I think there's a lot of misinformation. The problem in my opinion with today's media and social media -- I don't mean this as an attack on anybody here -- is everybody wants to be the first to say things so they can get credit."
Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford said earlier Wednesday that Franklin had addressed the team about the USC speculation.
"Coach Franklin talked to us (Tuesday), addressed the topic,” Clifford said on a Zoom call. "I don't think that it's anything that we need to worry about. It's something that is kind of out of our hands.
"We're just gonna focus on Auburn and then go from there. We're really excited about what we've got on table this week, so we're not gonna let outside sources change our thought process."