James Franklin’s departure from Vanderbilt to take over for Bill O’Brien as head coach at Penn State was met with what could be described as congratulatory displeasure. The taste left in the mouths of Vanderbilt students, alumni, and fans was bitter, but not unpalatable. Franklin, after all, had helped turn the program around. The Commodores had just come off back-to-back 9-4 finishes, which represented a stark improvement from anything the eras of Bobby Johnson, Woody Widenhofer, or Rob Dowhower, etc, etc. had produced.
Franklin purchased space in The Tennessean to thank Vanderbilt fans in January. Soon after the poaching began. Several of the top recruits who had previously committed to Vanderbilt flipped their commitments to follow Franklin to Penn State. It was apparent these athletes were interested in playing for Franklin, not Vanderbilt. It was cutthroat recruiting but not against the rules. There was something about his pursuit of athletes that established a connection. He reshaped a program. He was its leader. Then he was gone.
Here’s SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey on how Franklin went from a seemingly uninspiring hire at Vanderbilt to architect of the football program’s arrival in the SEC:
Over time, Franklin would find an identity as the coach who overhauled an outdated conditioning program with the help of longtime Maryland strength and conditioning coach Dwight Galt. He would be the one who, in a season of uniform fads across the sport, instituted the simple switch to all-black uniforms for big games, which caused some players to literally weep. He would be the rookie head coach not afraid to tangle with Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham at midfield, and the man in charge who was so often emotional at both ends of the spectrum that he would regularly fight back tears in postgame press conferences.
And he'd become the guy who won the non-conference games you're supposed to in the SEC, led two unabashed beat downs of suddenly inferior conference opponents and scared the crap out of the SEC elites, all with a team that won four games in two seasons.
Now, nearly five months after Penn State hired Franklin, allegations in a new report on the details of a rape investigation shrouded in secrecy reveal a damning and disgusting side of the former Vanderbilt coach.
Defense attorneys for one of the four men charged with five counts of aggravated rape stemming from a June 23rd incident on Vanderbilt campus filed a motion on Tuesday to “dismiss the case or reprimand prosecutors for destroying or failing to preserve evidence.” Among the evidence missing, according to the defense, were thousands of text messages and at least 220 phone calls from the victim’s phone, police interviews with friends of the victim, DNA test results from another man, an interview with the girlfriend of former starting quarterback Austyn Carta Samuels, and the text messages and phone records of Franklin and two other Vanderbilt staff members.
The report cites records to claim that Franklin and director of performance enhancement Dwight Galt (also now at Penn State) contacted the victim in the days following the rape.
Via The Tennessean:
Referring to records, the attorneys said the victim was contacted by Franklin and Galt during a medical examination four days after the rape to explain "that they cared about her because she assisted them with recruiting."
It went on to say that at some point, "Coach Franklin called her in for a private meeting and told her he wanted her to get fifteen pretty girls together and form a team to assist with the recruiting even though he knew it was against the rules. He added that all the other colleges did it."
Franklin has refused to comment. It’s a troubling situation for the coach and his former program. The case is very disturbing, from the details of the incident on down through the apparent incompetence exercised in the investigation and secrecy around the handling of evidence.
This is not to say that Franklin is complicit, but if the details of his recruiting request are accurate then it certainly paints him as a despicable person who sexually exploited women to help land a few prized recruits. The alleged cover up of his working relationship with the victim should not go unpunished. It’s college football, though, so it very well could.
Closure in the Vanderbilt rape case does not appear imminent. It’s yet another example of the rights and well being of a young woman being trampled in an effort to protect the interests of a football program and the men who run it. Hopefully some form of justice can be reached in this case that continues to become even more convoluted.
