Leave it to James Franklin to come up with a very creative way to increase Penn State’s recruiting ties to the Deep South.
Georgia State head coach Trent Miles confirmed to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution over the weekend that Franklin and his entire Nittany Lions coaching staff will serve as the Panthers’ “guest coaches” during a football camp in mid-June. The Journal-Constitution wrote that "[t]he radical arrangement appears to be a win-win for both programs: Penn State gets to personally evaluate high school players who would never travel to its camps in Pennsylvania, while Georgia State will get exposure to more high-profile recruits than normal.”
Also, before you ask, the unusual and temporary marriage does not violate any type of recruiting bylaws. as Miles explained.
“The way the rules are set up, you’re not allowed to have any camp outside of your state, unless you’re on the border and within a 50-mile radius — and a lot of people recruit in Atlanta,” the coach said. “But you can legally work somebody else’s camp.
“So it’s beneficial to both parties where Penn State can come down here, work our camp, and get to see the kids that they’re recruiting. And it benefits us by the amount of kids that are coming.”
Kudos to Franklin and Miles for finding a workaround to the NCAA rulebook that will actually benefit both programs.