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Penn State head coach James Franklin is coming off his first losing season in Happy Valley, but he remains optimistic about what his team will do in 2021. But despite taking his team to 11 win seasons in three of the last five seasons with pair of New Years Six bowl victories and a Big Ten championship to his name, Franklin is not quite viewed as one of the top coaches in the Big Ten.
Voters in a preseason poll organized by Cleveland.com recently cast their votes for the top head coach in the Big Ten, and Franklin barely came in the top half of the final vote. Voters ranked their top three head coaches in the Big Ten. Franklin appeared on eight of 34 ballots.
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day narrowly edged Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald for the top spot in the poll, receiving one more vote to be named the top coach in the Big Ten. Fitzgerald actually received one more first-place vote (17) than Day (16), but Day accumulated more second-place votes to edge Fitzgerald by two points in the final voting.
Franklin finished with the sixth-most points in the poll, which put Penn State’s head coach behind Day, Fitzgerald, Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, Wisconsin‘s Paul Chryst, and Indiana’s Tom Allen. Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck and Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano each received one point in the voting.
Notably absent from the poll was Michigan‘s Jim Harbaugh, who failed to appear in the top three of all 34 voters in the poll.
In the interest of full disclosure, I voted in the Cleveland.com poll and did include Franklin on my ballot. Day was my first-place vote and Franklin received my second-place vote. I voted for Wisconsin’s Paul Chryst with my third vote.
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