Jeff Lockridge

Nashville

Stop me, Vanderbilt fans, if any of this sounds vaguely familiar?

Former Commodores football coach James Franklin used another one of his Penn State coaches' caravan stops this week as a forum to stump for facility upgrades, contending the ones at his disposal are behind the curve.

That sure didn't take long.

Not only has Franklin kicked off his fundraising efforts well before his first game in Happy Valley, but he did so with an added jab that was surely meant to aggravate the university and its boosters into opening their wallets in a timely manner.

"To put it in a little bit of perspective for you, when I was at Vanderbilt, we had the last-place facilities in the SEC," said Franklin, as reported by Mark Brennan of FightOnState.com. "It wasn't even close. And our facilities at Vanderbilt (were) better than what they are at Penn State right now, which is probably a little shocking to people."

Vanderbilt's facilities are better than Penn State's, huh? OK.



Here are more excerpts from Franklin's press conference Tuesday at King of Prussia, Pa., a caravan stop near Philadelphia, after he was asked for examples of what needs improving:

"It's everything," he said. "It's the indoor facility. Our turf needs to be replaced outside and inside. The carpet. The paint. The branding. The furniture. The technology. What I would recommend (the media) do is you get on the Internet and you do some research on what does Oregon have? What does USC have? What does Oklahoma State have? … I think it's important for us to be aware of what's really out there.

"It's going to be getting people to support that vision and jump on board with us through fundraising and those types of things. I think Penn State has, and wants to again, be able to provide a first-class experience for the student-athletes. They've done that for a long time, and there's just some things we need to tweak and get back right. It's become a little bit of an arms race in college football if you look at what's going on, and we want to be a part of that."

At Vanderbilt, Franklin's demand for better facilities to aid recruiting began almost as quickly. By his first preseason camp, he was petitioning for an indoor facility on a regular basis – and certainly every time rain or lightning was in the area.

His sales pitch worked as the university drummed up the necessary cash for construction of Vanderbilt's new $31 million indoor complex, which opened last November.