Does Penn State need a fired-up James Franklin? 'I want to be ... true to who I am.'

James Franklin admits that he's finally back to being who he always was, which has only seemed to help his football team.

He's been known as one of the more upbeat, effervescent head coaches in the game. He's a fist-pumper, back-slapper and even a chest-pounder, on occasion. He's not afraid to speak his mind, like he did during Tuesday's weekly press conference concerning officiating issues in the White Out victory over Auburn.

His energy, it could be said, flows through his staff and team.

And COVID protocols and restrictions, and then his team losing, sucked it out of him last year.

Now, he's able to be unmasked during practices, games and press conferences (his glasses don't fog up, for one). His family is back together.

And his Nittany Lions are on a Top 10 kind of roll.

There does seem to be at least some connection to this all, right?

"We have to be careful comparing recent history to my career. I think most people would say I'm a fiery, emotional, passionate guy ... all the way back to my first year as a head coach at Vanderbilt," Franklin said on Tuesday. "That's how people would describe me. And I want to be authentic and true to who I am.

"I think everybody knows last year was a very different year ..."

COVID restrictions cut through Franklin's personal contact with players and his assistants and stunted Penn State's famed "family atmosphere." It canceled critical hands-on practices for his new assistants.

It even forced his family out of town, where they could be sequestered more easily because of his daughter's sickle cell anemia concerns.

He didn't show his fire in public settings like he had always. At the same time, his team began 2020 with a school-record five defeats.

"I think that's a strength of mine, to read peoples' facial expressions and body language and kind of interpret the gray. And that was challenging (last year). That was one of my strengths that was taken away."

Lately, though, "I think I'm probably similar to how I've been throughout my career. I was fiery for a number of reasons last week because I felt like we were fighting more than Auburn. ... I felt like we were fighting a lot."

Franklin refused to clarify that statement, though it almost certainly was in regard to being labeled one of the leading candidates — or at least a great fit — to become the new head coach at USC.

He was animated again on Tuesday, swerving from one subject matter to the next.

Like playfully responding to a query about being recruited by Saturday's opponent, Villanova, as a high school quarterback in the Philadelphia surburbs: "Would I have like to have been recruited by Villanova? Yes. Villanova gave me the stiff arm, just like Penn State did. I wasn't good enough." (He went on to star at East Stroudsburg University).

He also fired off a rare, press conference-ending tangent on the officiating in Saturday night's game, led by crew from the Southeastern Conference. His words, he offered, should not be seen as a possible fine-inducing rant, only as a fact-finding report from his own research.

He started by questioning the intentional grounding penalty on quarterback Sean Clifford that led to Penn State wrongly losing a down.

He proceeded to point out Auburn's potential illegal alignment on a failed fake punt try ... to a missed intentional grounding call on the Tigers ... to a questionable personal foul call on one of his own linebackers. 

"Again, interpreting the rules and trying to learn from what happens in games and educating my staff and educating myself," is how Franklin described his message.

"Again, not being critical, just making sure we understand these situations. I just want to make sure my staff is interpreting these things the right way ... and that we're teaching the rules correctly to our team."

And with that, he was finally finished for the day.

On to preparing for heavy-underdog Villanova — and to being the kind of coach he said he always had been.

Frank Bodani covers Penn State football for the York Daily Record and USA Today Network. Contact him at fbodani@ydr.com and follow him on Twitter @YDRPennState.