Franklin weighs in on seismic changes in college sports taken in University Park, Pa. (Penn State)

Penn State Athletics

Drew Allar poses for photos at Penn State media day.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- College football as we've always known it has ceased to exist. There are lots of things to look forward to with so many drastic changes, but at the same time, the changes themselves have led to the kind of seismic shift we've never seen before.

And as James Franklin correctly pointed out Saturday during Penn State media day, it all has happened incredibly fast.

"There's probably been more changes in the last five years than the previous 50, and I don't think it's close," he said. "I think the game and the rules were the same for probably at least 50 years. And now in the last five, there's been changes and dramatic changes."

The latest change has been the collapse of the tradition-rich Pac-12 conference, which just lost Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten, a year after USC and UCLA bolted from one league to the other. Colorado also has left for the Big 12, and Arizona, Arizona State and Utah are doing the same thing.

Franklin came into media day Sunday surely looking forward to talking a whole bunch about his football team, which many believe has a legitimate shot at the College Football Playoff. But in some candid comments, the coach also noted that all of these changes do come with a cost.

"With what you see that's going on in college football right now, it's not shocking that these things are kind of happening," Franklin said. "It's somewhat sad in some ways, not that these people are being added to our conference, because I think obviously there's a lot of strategy that goes into that.

"But you know, I do think there's some challenges that come along with it, and it's just very different for most of the people in this room. It's very different than the college football that we all grew up with, not really college football, college athletics, where at least for most of the year it was pretty regional."

College football isn't regional anymore. Not by a long shot -- when you've got two states in the Pacific Northwest and two in Southern California now part of a what used to be a Midwest league but now spans the entire country from California to New Jersey.

Just look at this wacky map.

"I think we could sit here and have a pretty interesting debate that some of the changes were needed," Franklin said. "I would also say in defending the NCAA -- that nobody seems to be doing anymore -- I think people see once they try to get involved in it, that a lot of these decisions and a lot of these changes and a lot of these rules are much more sophisticated than people think and much more challenging than people think because they cross over into a lot of different worlds."

At that point, Franklin dove into a long diatribe about the transfer portal, which has changed the sport as much as anything else.

"This would probably be the best way to describe it from my lens and my perspective is the transfer portal," he said. "I think it's like the pendulum, right. I think the pendulum has overcorrected, but I would say there was a problem. Should head coaches have been able to have the power to deny kids from transferring to 10 different schools? They shouldn't have been able to do that. That was not right. That was unfair.

"To be honest with you, there was really only a handful of people that abused it, and that's probably the same way in any industry, right. There's a few people, maybe 5 percent that abuse the rules. Well, now that happens and now a rule has to be put in place to correct for that. I think that's really what happened.

"Instead of maybe allowing coaches, I think it would have been much better to have the conferences and the commissioners come up with a standard rule, whatever it may be, five schools, or you can't transfer within your conference or whatever. But there were people saying anybody on our schedule, five years out, like it just was too much.

"I also don't think that just complete open transferring is good. And it's funny, because I think when a lot of people say things like this, it comes off as being anti-student athlete. And that's completely the opposite when it comes to me. But again, I still believe in the student-athlete model, and I still believe that the No. 1 thing we should be doing is educating."

Franklin went on and about this for several minutes, and made a ton of good points. But his bottom line is that, there was a problem, and instead of solving the problem itself, a bunch of rules were made that actually created more problems.

"Do I think the players should have options and choices? Yes. Do I think the coaches should have been able to restrict student athletes from transferring anywhere that the coach didn't want them to transfer to? No. But I think we could have gotten to more of a middle ground rather than from one extreme to where we are now," Franklin said.

FOOTBALL MATTERS

While all of the above certainly matters the most on a grand scale, there were a whole lot of football matters brought up during media day.

• What's happening with the quarterback situation, and when Franklin will name the starter?

Drew Allar will be the starter. But no, Franklin did not come out and declare that Sunday.

"We are not announcing or making any decisions at this point, really at any position," he said. "It's a competition, and we want to create competition at every position as long as possible, and I think it brings the best out in everyone. As you guys know, that's really kind of how we have operated here for 10 years."

So for now, at least, Allar is still competing with Beau Pribula for the starting job. This makes sense from the perspective that Pribula needs to be as ready as possible to play just in case something happens to Allar, so that the season doesn't fall apart. And preseason camp is really the best time to make sure Pribula is getting as much work as possible -- not necessarily to close the gap in the competition, but to simply be prepared to play.

"Drew and Beau, obviously in year two, they look like guys that are year two in the same system mentally," Franklin said. "They look like guys year two physically. They both have gotten stronger. They have both gotten leaner. They have both gotten faster. They have gotten more confident with their reads, their accuracy, their decision-making, those types of things.

"So, they have been impressive, they really have."

And of course, Franklin couldn't talk about his two quarterbacks without also discussing the third. He had high praise for true freshman Jaxon Smolik.

"I'd say Smolik has been kind of the surprise at camp so far, specifically in the quarterback room," the coach said. "He's one of those guys that, although he is still learning the nuances of the position and the nuances of the offense in terms of in the meeting, when asked questions, he's not where Drew and Beau are in terms of being able to answer questions in a meeting, but he's just got a natural feel for the position on the field.

"Some guys, it's almost like a point guard. You've just got a feel for depth and spacing on the field and how to find open receivers. He throws a really nice ball. So, he's doing well. If we can continue to build on this, I think we'll feel good about where he's at."

• Where is the wide receiver competition at, and how has transfer Dante Cephas fared so far?

The team has a whole lot of quality depth across the board, but Franklin suggested that's not the case at receiver.

"Wide receiver is a position where I wouldn't necessarily say we have a two-deep or three-deep that's defined yet," he said. "But I think we have good number of guys that legitimately are competing for that third, fourth, that third spot but really when you talk about the two-deep, the fourth, fifth and sixth. I think there's probably eight guys that are legitimately in that competition, and it kind of goes day-to-day."

And about Cephas?

"He's done some really good things," the coach said. "He's gotten bigger. He's gotten stronger. The guys have got a ton of respect for him. He's shown flashes."

Then Franklin brought up the major point that absolutely will determine how successful Cephas will or will not be at Penn State.

"I do think there's an adjustment period that he's going through, because it's one thing to do it two or three times a season when you're watching him play an opponent like Georgia, it's another thing to do it week in and week out in the Big Ten," the coach said. "And I think it's another thing to do it every day at practice. I think he's really embraced that, and I think he recognizes it's going to bring out the best in him as well."

• It all starts up front, on both sides of the ball.

This might be the best offensive and defensive line combination that Penn State has had in decades.

"Depth on the D-Line and depth on the O-Line is impressive," Franklin said. "The amount of bodies, the amount of experience that I think are going to impact the team this year and have really good careers here at Penn State, I think that's impressive."

THE FAMILY DOG

Franklin has always enjoyed sharing an occasional fun story about his family, although maybe not as much in recent years. But he revealed that the family has gotten a second dog.

And he doesn't like the new pooch.

"My wife was at practice yesterday with the second dog we've gotten," he said. "I actually didn't like the first one. I like the first one now, but I'm not going to like the second one, no matter what."

LOTS MORE TO COME

Be sure to follow our Penn State feed throughout the week for lots more coverage from media day.

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