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Sandy Barbour didn’t deny James Franklin extension report, nor did she confirm it
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James Franklin is on the brink of an extension at Penn State, or so it appears.
The future of the Penn State coach has been a topic of discussion for several months following the team’s surprise run to the Rose Bowl. Now, it appears that those talks are nearing a conclusion.
Penn State target Solomon Enis, the son of Lion legend Curtis Enis, had an interesting comment at The Opening about the PSU coaching staff. Specifically, his last sentence about Franklin.
“Coach Franklin, Coach Gattis and Coach Moorhead, I mean, they’re just great guys and even better coaches and they’re going to put you in a position you can thrive in and they just treat you like my family,” Enis said at The Opening Finals at Nike World Headquarters via PennLive.com. “They tell you straight up. They’re blunt with everything and you can trust them. Franklin signed a new five-year deal so he’s going to be there a minute while I’m there.”
The words “Franklin signed a new five-year deal” obviously wasn’t official. Whether or not Enis was told that in confidence is unknown.
But regardless of the reason for slipping on something that wasn’t public information, Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour was asked about Enis’ comment.
“Keeping James at Penn State for a long, successful tenure is a priority,” Barbour said in a statement. “We will announce these details when appropriate.”
Just as she did two months ago, Barbour didn’t officially confirm Enis’ assertion of a “five-year deal,” but she did say that PSU would “announce those details when appropriate.”
RELATED: Penn State AD addresses Franklin’s contract extension situation
So if there weren’t details involved, then the two sides would still be far apart. It’s possible that the length of the deal and even the basic financials have been agreed upon. Perhaps just incentives and buyout clauses need to be worked out.
For now, we don’t know. But for Barbour to address it in the first place — coming from a recruiting target — suggests that it’s more legitimate than a message board discussion.
Franklin is only entering the fourth year of a six-year deal, which paid him $4.5 million in base pay in 2016. The assumption, however, was that an extension would’ve been agreed upon shortly after the conclusion of Penn State’s magical 2016 season.
When will the appropriate time be for Barbour to announce Franklin’s inevitable extension? Maybe Penn State will follow in Kevin Durant’s footsteps and announce the deal on Fourth of July.
That seems like a much more realistic timeframe than we thought 24 hours ago.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.