Franklin jabs at ND, says CFP needs uniformity
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
DANIA BEACH, Fla. — While discussing the opportunity that awaits Penn State in the College Football Playoff, coach James Franklin said Wednesday that the showdown against Notre Dame is about “representing our schools and our conferences.”
Franklin then caught himself, realizing Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman was sitting just to his right.
“Or our conference, excuse me,” Franklin said.
Penn State will be representing the Big Ten against FBS independent Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl on Thursday night (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) at Hard Rock Stadium.
The Nittany Lions reached the Big Ten championship game before earning a No. 6 seed in the first 12-team CFP, while the Fighting Irish made the playoff as an at-large and earned the No. 7 seed despite playing in one fewer game.
Franklin said he thinks a larger CFP ultimately requires more uniformity around college football, including every team to be part of a conference and playing the same number of league games. Notre Dame, one of three remaining FBS independents, sees its status as central to the school’s identity and has resisted chances to join the Big Ten and other conferences over the years. The Fighting Irish compete in the ACC for most of their other major sports, and they have a scheduling agreement with the ACC in football.
“It should be consistent across college football,” Franklin said. “This is no knock at [Freeman] or Notre Dame, but I think everybody should be in a conference. I think everybody should play a conference championship game, or nobody should play a conference champion championship game. I think everybody should play the same number of conference games.”
Penn State reached the CFP by playing nine conference games as well as the Big Ten championship game against No. 1 Oregon, which defeated the Nittany Lions 45-37 on Dec. 7. The Big 12 also has maintained a nine-game league slate, while the SEC and ACC have stayed at eight conference games.
Franklin, who coached at Vanderbilt before Penn State, praised the SEC for remaining at eight league games, which the league’s coaches wanted. The SEC has repeatedly considered going to nine league games during Franklin’s time in the Big Ten.
“I was not a math major at East Stroudsburg, but just the numbers are going to make things more challenging if you’re playing one more conference game,” he said.
Franklin also highlighted other areas of the sport that could be made more uniform, including starting the season a week earlier to ease the strain of playing more games with an expanded playoff. He reiterated his desire to appoint a college football commissioner unaffiliated with a school or a conference, and once again mentioned longtime coach and current ESPN analyst Nick Saban as an option, along with former Washington and Boise State coach Chris Petersen, now a Fox college football analyst, and Dave Clawson, who recently stepped down as Wake Forest’s coach.
“We need somebody that is looking at it from a big-picture perspective,” Franklin said.
Freeman acknowledged that Notre Dame prides itself on its independence. He said the team uses the weekend of conference championships, when they’re guaranteed not to be playing, as another open week for recovery and other priorities.
Notre Dame ended the regular season Nov. 30 and did not play again until Dec. 20, when it hosted Indiana in a first-round CFP game. In helping craft the format for the 12-team CFP, former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick agreed that if the Irish were selected, they would not be eligible to earn a bye into the quarterfinals.
Freeman noted that he doesn’t have a strong opinion on whether college football needs more uniformity.
“I’m a guy that just [thinks], ‘Tell us what we’re doing and let’s go, and you move forward,'” Freeman said. “I love where we’re at right now. [Athletic director] Pete Bevacqua and our Notre Dame administration will continue to make decisions that are best for our program.”
Franklin said his desire for greater consistency stems from the CFP selection process and the difficulty of committee members to sort through teams with vastly different paths and profiles, and determine strength of schedule and other factors.
“How do you put those people that are in that room to make a really important decision that impacts the landscape of college football, and they can’t compare apples to apples or oranges to oranges?” Franklin said. “I think that makes it very, very difficult.”
Mitch Marner was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights — with an eight-year extension in place, sources told ESPN on Monday. Forward Nicolas Roy will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return.
Marner’s new deal has a $12 million average annual value, according to sources. Marner, 28, was the biggest name entering Tuesday’s NHL free agency, and multiple teams were hoping to make pitches. Marner was the NHL’s fifth-leading scorer last season with 102 points — 36 more than the next-closest free agent. The winger was drafted by his hometown Maple Leafs with the No. 4 pick in 2015.
The Maple Leafs knew that Marner was looking to test free agency at the end of the season. Over the past few days, Toronto worked with Vegas, which was Marner’s preferred destination, on a trade. The Maple Leafs held Marner’s rights until just before midnight Tuesday.
Had Marner become an unrestricted free agent, he couldn’t have signed a deal for more than seven years.
Marner finished a six-year deal that paid him $10.9 million annually. Marner, who played for Team Canada at Four Nations and likely will make their Olympic team, has 221 goals and 741 points in nine NHL seasons.
Toronto general manager Brad Treliving has stayed busy this week, re-signing John Tavares and Matthew Knies while trading for Utah forward Matias Maccelli earlier Monday.
Roy, 28, is a center who is entering Year 4 of a five-year deal that pays him $3 million annually.
Ahead of the Marner trade, the Golden Knights created cap space by sending defenseman Nicolas Hague to the Nashville Predators on Monday.
The deal makes Marner the highest-paid player on Vegas, however, center Jack Eichel ($10 million AAV) is entering the final year of his contract and is eligible to sign an extension this summer. The Golden Knights might not be done this offseason. According to sources, defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is expected to go on long-term injured reserve, which could create more flexibility.
Sign-and-trades ahead of free agency are becoming a trend for NHL teams that know they will not sign their coveted player; last season, the Carolina Hurricanes dealt Jake Guentzel‘s rights to the Tampa Bay Lightning before he signed a seven-year deal.
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Ryan S. Clark
Hours after re-signing Aaron Ekblad, the Florida Panthers kept another integral piece of their Stanley Cup team by re-signing Brad Marchand to a six-year contract extension, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.
Marchand’s deal has an average annual value of $5.25 million, sources told Kaplan.
Coming to terms with Ekblad on an eight-year extension worth $6.1 million annually left the Panthers with what PuckPedia projected to be $4.9 million in salary cap space.
There was the possibility that Marchand, 37, could have left the Panthers for a more lucrative offer elsewhere considering there were teams that had more than enough cap space to sign him.
Instead? Marchand, who arrived ahead of the NHL trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, appears as if he will remain in South Florida for the rest of his career.
Acquiring defenseman Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks and then adding Marchand were two decisions made by Panthers general manager Bill Zito with the intent of seeing the Panthers win a second consecutive Stanley Cup as part of a run that now has included three straight Cup Final appearances.
Marchand, who was a pending UFA entering the final day before free agency begins Tuesday, used the 2025 postseason to further cement why the Panthers and other teams throughout the NHL would still seek his services. He scored 10 goals and finished with 20 points in 23 playoff games.
For all the contributions he made, his greatest came during the Cup Final series against the Edmonton Oilers.
Marchand, who previously won a Cup with the Bruins back in 2011, opened the series with a goal in the first three games. That includes the two goals he scored in the Panthers’ 5-4 double-overtime win to tie the series with his second being the game-winning salvo.
He scored two more goals in a 5-2 win in Game 5 that allowed the Panthers to take a 3-1 series lead before returning to Sunrise, Florida, where they closed out the series with an emphatic 5-1 win.
Capturing a consecutive title created questions about whether the Panthers can win a third in a row. But there was the understanding that it might be difficult given there was only so much salary cap space to re-sign Conn Smythe winner Sam Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand.
Knowing there was a chance they could lose one, or more, of them, Zito laid the foundation to retain the trio. He began by signing Bennett to an eight-year contract worth $8 million annually on June 27 before using Monday to sign Ekblad and Marchand.
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Ryan S. Clark
Ivan Provorov decided to forgo free agency, with the veteran defenseman finalizing a seven-year extension Monday worth $8.5 million annually to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets, sources told ESPN, confirming earlier reports.
With free agency slated to start Tuesday, the 28-year-old was one of the most notable defenseman who had a chance to hit the open market.
Provorov’s decision to stay with the Blue Jackets comes shortly after it was reported that Aaron Ekblad also avoided free agency by agreeing to an eight-year extension to remain with the Florida Panthers. That now leaves players such as Vladislav Gavrikov, Ryan Lindgren, and Dmitry Orlov among the more prominent pending UFAs who could be available should they fail to strike a deal with their current teams.
Retaining Provorov comes months after a season that witnessed the Blue Jackets shed the title of being a rebuilding franchise to one that could challenge for the playoffs in 2025-26.
Four consecutive seasons without the playoffs created the idea that the 2024-25 campaign could be another challenging one. But a six-game winning streak in January saw Columbus post a 22-17-6 record to create the belief that a turnaround could be in order.
The Jackets closed the season with another six-game winning streak but fell short of the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot, which went to the Montreal Canadiens by two points.
Provorov would finish with seven goals and 33 points in 82 games while his 23 minutes, 21 seconds in average ice time was second behind Norris Trophy finalist Zach Werenski.
Re-signing Provorov comes in an offseason that saw the Blue Jackets also strengthen their bottom-six forward corps by adding Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche.
PuckPedia projects that the Blue Jackets now have $20.957 million in cap space ahead of free agency.
TSN was first to report news of Provorov’s decision.
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