For Penn State right now James Franklin is wrong choice

Vanderbilt football coach James Franklin shown here during the 2014 Compass Bowl in Birmingham Ala. is reportedly Penn State's choice to become its new football coach replacing Bill O'Brien who left to coach the NFL's Houston Texans.(Photo Marvin Gentry USA TODAY Sports)

Story HighlightsJames Franklin is a talented and coveted football coach but Penn State should take a passThe rape case at Vanderbilt involves Franklin's players and it must be considered by Penn StateThe memory of the Sandusky child sex scandal should guide every move in Penn State athletics

You're Penn State and you have an opening for a head football coach. Your squeaky clean miracle worker Bill O'Brien just finished up two years in Happy Valley and bolted for the NFL.

So now you're looking for another coach an O'Brien clone someone once again above reproach because after all you are Penn State and you still are just 26 months removed from the worst scandal in the history of American education. Not just athletics. All schools all time.

What Jerry Sandusky did under the auspices of Penn State football was so horrible that one would think the mere thought of his despicable acts would guide every move by every person in a position of leadership at Penn State from now until well forever. For instance because Sandusky raped young boys you would think Penn State definitely would steer clear of anyone involved with that awful terrible word rape. That would seem to be a wise guiding principle for the search committee.

So Penn State who are you thinking about hiring

A man whose tenure at Vanderbilt was marked by a rape scandal.

Penn State might make that hire

Yes Penn State.

James Franklin is a coveted 41 year old head coach who probably would make a fine hire for any of his other suitors. Just not Penn State. Not at this time.

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Last June four of Franklin's players were charged with raping an unconscious 21 year old woman in a dormitory and a fifth player pleaded guilty to helping cover it up. All five were dismissed from the team. If and when there is a trial it will be Franklin's former players on trial. One of the players' attorneys was quoted as saying he wants to subpoena Franklin.

Whatever happens in that case by hiring Franklin Penn State will have attached itself to it. If there's a trial and Franklin's a part of it Penn State would be a part of it too.

Are Penn State's leaders still that tone deaf to the way the nation looks at its school especially its football program

Apparently so.

Franklin a Pennsylvania guy who comes from the Philadelphia suburbs and went to college at East Stroudsburg has not been implicated in any criminal wrongdoing by investigators. And to be fair he is the man who quickly kicked the arrested players off his team.

Even so it was a terrible moment in college athletics a black mark for Vanderbilt for Franklin and potentially one that by association will mark Penn State. Maybe Penn State's leaders subscribe to the misery loves company school of management. How else do we explain this

And that's not all. Franklin has attracted other controversy. During a 2012 radio interview he said one of the top qualifications for his assistant coaches is that they must have attractive wives.

Yes Penn State's reported choice for new head football coach said exactly that and not just in an off hand remark but as part of a long statement in which he declared it a job qualification.

I've been saying it for a long time I will not hire an assistant coach until I've seen his wife Franklin said. If she looks the part and she's a D 1 recruit then you got a chance to get hired. That's part of the deal.

He continued There's a very strong correlation between having the confidence going up and talking to a woman and being quick on your feet and having some personality and confidence and being fun and articulate than it is walking into a high school and recruiting a kid and selling him.

Franklin later apologized on Twitter. David Williams Vanderbilt's vice chancellor of athletics covered for him saying clearly what he said is not how he feels and not how we feel.

Clearly though after reading those full paragraphs of Franklin's feelings on the topic isn't that exactly what he feels

Maybe Penn State's leaders are yearning for a return to the 1950s in Happy Valley.

If so they have their man.

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