James Franklin has been the Penn State football coach for 10 seasons, going on 11.
During that time, he’s said a lot of things— not many of them about injuries.
One thing he had never done until today is suggest improvements to the State College Regional Airport.
2024 is a year of a lot of first in the Big Ten, with Franklin and Penn State taking on USC Saturday in what will be the first time the teams have played each other as conference opponents. That first led to Franklin talking about the airport.
Franklin said in the previous week’s Monday presser that the team will be flying to California the Thursday before the game.
The next week, he talked about some of the logistical challenges.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.I’m surprised it has taken James Franklin a decade of being in State College to finally lobby for a bigger runway at the airport.
— Ben Jones (@Ben_Jones88) October 7, 2024
“Not only are they (Penn State) one of most northeast schools, but based on runway, weight, size, fuel, can’t get out of here unless they stop for fuel,” he said. “With that, have to fly out of Harrisburg. That’s something to be discussed is increasing the size of the runway here and airport, for a lot of reasons – university, business, athletics now that they’ve decided to make this move as the Big Ten. That’s something they need to do for a lot of reasons. Now you’re talking about adding two hours on top of the 5 1/2 hour flight. That’s a big reason for leaving Thursday.”
Penn State’s equipment truck left for California Sunday night.
Overall, James Franklin comfortable with the plan Penn State has laid out.
“That’s something to address moving forward,” he said. “Something that changes things for Penn State compared to a lot of other programs in the conference. Got the double whammy. It’s the distance and the airport.”
