Penn State Football Makes Their HBO Debut
In terms of a recruiting pitch, the Penn State installment of HBO’s College Football 24/7 series worked like a charm.
If you were looking to glean some inside information or learn something new about the Penn State program, you’d be left wanting.
The second episode of the series focused on the Nittany Lions as they prepared for their matchup with Purdue. From the meeting rooms of the Lasch building to the practice field to Beaver Stadium, cameras caught Penn State players practicing, studying, eating and practicing some more. Not the most entertaining spectacle, but mindless fun nonetheless.
Of course, James Franklin had no intention of giving a true inside look at his program, instead, he crafted an incredible recruiting pitch out of the 50-minute show. He came off as half patriarch of the Penn State family and half politician. Many of Franklin’s scenes focus on him and his daughters, where he gets away from football for a few hours and becomes the ultimate dad.
At a team family dinner, Franklin is shown hugging, kissing and high fiving other coaches’ children and wives. He and coordinators Brent Pry and Ricky Rahne speak to the family atmosphere in State College, something they say is unlike anywhere else they’ve been.
In meeting rooms and on the practice field, Franklin is pleasant, dedicated, funny and relatable. Exactly the type of coach recruits want to play for. The beautiful shots of the new renovations to the Lasch building and incredible aerial shots of Happy Valley serve as the best visual recruiting pitches one could ask for.
The Nittany Lions have some big personalities, but probably none bigger than KJ Hamler. The receiver is shown ribbing quarterback Sean Clifford and expressing shock when safety Garrett Taylor outleaps him during a weight room test in one of the funnier moments of the episode.
In terms of players, the majority of the cameras were pointed towards the defensive line. Coach Sean Spencer is shown driving his Harley Davidson to the practice facility where he brings incredible energy to his “wild dogs”, the self-appointed nickname of the defensive line.
No doubt the episode was edited to shine a light on the defensive line, as they went out and completely dominated the line of scrimmage versus Purdue. The show is mainly fluff, and it’s difficult to capture the essence of a program in less than an hour, but Penn State football is well represented nonetheless.
There will be two more episodes of the series this year, featuring Arizona State and Washington State.
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