He's been on the job for four months and nine days. And in that time James Franklin has secured commitments from 21 prospects (nine in the Class of 2014, 12 in the No. 2-ranked Class of 2015), extended offers to prospects in 24 states, completed spring practice, pushed his Twitter following to nearly 72,000 (or, roughly, the number of people who came to see the Blue-White Game) and made headlines for everything from his "dominate the state" quote to super-imposing half of a lion's head onto his own.

Franklin has already landed nearly a full class of recruits in less than five months.

Imagine what this guy might do when he can sleep in his own bed.

Penn State's new head football coach is working like a man who somehow received a memo that the world is going to end next week and he's the only one who knows about it. And in doing so he has already changed much of the identity of the program.

For so many years, Penn State football was king in this part of the country, and it really was as simple as that. The best players in the state and the region simply came to State College because, really, why would they go anywhere else? Joe Paterno had four-star talent on his third team. It didn't really matter if the Nittany Lions had two commitments or five by the time the season began, because by the time Signing Day rolled around, they would have 20-25 recruits, most of them the guys they had targeted from the get-go. Those lists, and the list of walk-ons, would be sprinkled with legacies, the sons of former players. Some of those guys panned out and many others didn't, but it didn't really matter, because the flow of talent from other places was steady and sure.

Gradually, and almost imperceptibly, that flow started slowing. Penn State's assistants had to battle for the top recruits, then the next tier. The cream of Pennsylvania's annual crop started heading to Ohio State or Michigan, and when they returned a few years later wearing enemy colors, made the Nittany Lions wish they'd landed them. There were still big recruits, yes, and there were still plenty of games won, but it was as though the king had to come down from his throne and eat with his subjects; he'd still get his fill, but he shared a lot of the feast.

The abrupt end to Paterno's legendary career and the nightmare of the Sandusky scandal rocked the entire kingdom and changed the entire dynamic. Bill O'Brien marched down from Massachusetts and started picking up the pieces, only to see the next bomb -- the sanctions -- go off. Suddenly it didn't matter how highly ranked the recruits were, only that recruits -- any recruits -- were still coming to Penn State.

O'Brien was rebuilding the program's recruiting momentum, which had been waning due to reasons within the former staff's control, then nearly halted due to the fallout from an unprecedented scandal. The Penn State Franklin inherited could best be described as the sleeping Lion that had been awakened from a lengthy slumber but was struggling a bit with atrophied muscles.

Just four months later, though, that Lion is on the prowl again, as frisky as it's been in decades. But though the impressive recruiting ranking makes it tempting to say that Penn State is the king again, this era is different. A better metaphor would be that of a young knight -- strong, determined, ambitious, taking nothing for granted and ready to take the battle to the opponent rather than wait for the fight to come to him. There are still rocky days ahead for this program, but most of them should be this fall rather than next, and the flow of talent is, suddenly, steady once more.

Paterno must be given credit for building the castle and for maintaining it for so long, O'Brien for cleaning away some of the undergrowth and for surviving some bombardments that threatened to reduce the walls to rubble. Franklin, though, seems more concerned with setting the table for the feast than sitting in the throne, which could mean heartier meals for everyone.

