James Franklin has done this to himself.
Franklin has muddied his own waters on talking about injuries and Wednesday night’s news that might be non-news seems to be the tipping point in this entire conversation.
When it comes to injuries talk, the fans and media deserve at minimum some consistency and clarity – even if Franklin doesn’t want to give the whole story.
On Wednesday when Penn State’s media beat arrived at practice, Nicholas Singleton was not there. He is one of the two star running backs on this Penn State team and his absence on Wednesday is worthy of some acknowledgement as many reported on Twitter.
Now, there are a host of reasons why Singleton was absent. He could have been injured. It could have been a rest day. He could have had a class project to work on. He could have been at the dreaded Pollock Testing Center taking a test. He could have been abducted by aliens. But regardless of his whereabouts, it is news when the 408-yard rusher this far into the season isn’t at practice.
Several things also added to the confusion of this as well. First, Singleton played the majority of Saturday’s contest against Illinois, picking up 94 yards and a touchdown with no noticeable injury. Additionally, on Tuesday morning, Penn State tweeted a clip of Singleton running over some Illini players.
Further, Singleton was made available to the media by Penn State on Tuesday as well. Typically (virtually always), if a player is battling injury, Penn State will not make them available.
So when Singleton wasn’t at practice, it’s worthy of a question from the media about his status and why it might have changed, especially when that player didn’t indicate any injury issues the day before.
On Wednesday, Lions247’s Mark Brennan asked a well crafted question about this situation.
Brennan: “James from the questions-we-have-to-ask, we didn’t see Nick in practice today. Is there anything that is going on there that might impact his availability?”
Franklin: “No, not at this stage.”
In the written word, this exchange comes off as “no, there is no injury.” In fact, one could even interpret this as Singleton is going to play. But as you can see from the video, it’s very easy to interpret the situation a different way.
Brennan: “Is there anything further you can tell us?”
Franklin: “No. Which I think for 11 years, I haven’t told you guys anything.”
Brennan: “You understand that we have to ask.”
Franklin: “I get it. Really I’d love to talk about that at some point – why you have to ask if I’m not going to answer. You’re wasting a question in my mind. But that’s your job. I don’t understand it. I’d like to understand it better some time.”
By bringing up, “…for 11 years, I haven’t told you guys anything,” it could imply there is an injury. The “anything” there refers to injury situations.
But of late, Franklin has told the media about injury situations. As well detailed in this piece from Blue White Illustrated’s Greg Pickel, Franklin has gone from truly not talking about injuries to talking about season-ending injuries to talking about “long-term” injuries and “bumps and bruises.”
This season in particular, he has talked about “bumps and bruises” for some players. At the Sept. 23 press conference, he brought up Ta’Mere Robinson having “bumps and bruises” but it was in a past tense.
“Ta’Mere is a guy that we’ve been excited about really since we recruited him,” Franklin said at his Monday press conference. “He had some bumps and bruises where he lost some time.”
And for what it’s worth, he brought this up relatively unprompted as he was only asked about how the young linebackers were doing performance-wise, not injury-wise.
Then with safety KJ Winston dealing with some sort of injury after the Bowling Green game — spotted because he didn’t play for much of it, Franklin addressed the situation head on with the media. First he said he didn’t have an update at the Monday press conference but might have one later on.
“Yeah, so a couple of things. I think that the first point is I don’t really have any new information to share with you guys at this stage,” Franklin said at the Tuesday press conference. “I probably will. I would think probably post-practice when I see you guys later in the week.
Then at the Wednesday availability, he did when asked.
Question: “James, you said you’d probably have an update on the availability of KJ.”
Franklin: “Long term.”
So again, Franklin is talking about an injury. He’s not telling us what it was or exactly how long is “long term” but he is talking about them.
Where things get more confusing is when a reporter asked about Cam Wallace’s status at the Monday press conference prior to the Illinois game.
Here’s Franklin’s full answer from the ASAP Sports transcript:
“Again, I understand you guys are going to ask these questions. I typically don’t have these answers for you. I hate to see you waste a question, but I typically don’t have these answers for you guys in this press conference because, once again, we need time to evaluate the injuries and we need time to have conversations with these kids and their families before I’m going to say something to you guys about it.
“I would recommend for you guys to probably save these type of questions till Tuesday (sic. He meant Wednesday.), but if you guys want to ask, feel free to ask. I typically won’t have this information for you guys on a Monday, again, because we need to totally evaluate the injuries, and sometimes you’re talking about MRIs and X rays and a ton of things that go into that, and also me to be able to have time to have conversations with them and possibly their families.”
This answer implies that he will talk about injuries as well but the media has to wait to ask until Wednesday.
The Singleton situation has a slightly different timeline than the Wallace saga — given the change from Tuesday’s Singleton availability to Wednesday’s Franklin availability. But by being silent on the reason for Singleton’s absence on Wednesday, Franklin only created more speculation he could be injured.
If you’re confused, so am I.
The problem is that Franklin has changed how he has talked about injuries. When he opened Pandora’s box a few seasons ago by talking about injuries, he no longer can hide behind the fact he doesn’t “talk about injuries.”
And if a player is absent at practice, people’s first thought is that he is injured. It is well within the rights of the media to ask about the absence of a player, particularly a star player. They are the ones covering the team and they’re the ones providing a third-party report of the team.
I respect that Franklin doesn’t want to talk about injuries and their details until he has all of the facts – but do think fans also have a right to know the status of a player when the player isn’t around. It’s obvious when a player does or doesn’t play.
Radio silence on the situation would be downright silly. We all can see that the player is absent from games – and we also trust the media to be the ones to report accurately that the player is absent when fans aren’t allowed in.
By not clearly addressing the situation on Wednesday night, Franklin has now created a bigger story out of this whole situation. He’s got to be more direct and clear on the rules around talking about injuries.
And again, we have no clue as to whether or not Singleton is injured.
If Singleton is not injured, why is it hard to say he’s not injured and just had a rest day or had class or was abducted by aliens? In fact, I’m not sure I need the reason either, a simple “he’s not injured” will do.
UCLA or any Penn State opponent still has to prepare for him too. Ironically, the question before the Singleton talk was about whether UCLA QB Ethan Garbers’ injury changes how Franklin prepares for the game.
To which, Franklin said “we can’t chase ghosts.”
And if Singleton is injured, Franklin can say he is dealing with injury and he’s working to get a timeline of return – whether it be for Saturday’s game or beyond. That way UCLA’s coaching staff still doesn’t know if Singleton is or isn’t going to play and will still have to prepare for them – just like Franklin is preparing for Garbers.
The messy inconsistency of injury talk put Franklin, fans and the media into this situation Wednesday night.
A little more consistency and clarity fixes all of that.
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