Last week, at a news conference before the College Football Playoff semifinals, Penn State coach James Franklin turned to his counterpart, Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, and asked a question.
“How old are you now, Marcus?”
“Thirty-eight,” Freeman curtly answered.
Franklin, 52, was trying to make a joke about how Freeman’s full head of hair compared to his own bald dome (“I mean, look at the hairline on this guy”).
He went on to praise Freeman’s leadership and coaching acumen and, considering Franklin was just 39 when he was hired as the head coach of Vanderbilt, is probably empathetic to being a young coach.
Still, the question hung in the air. It felt dismissive. It felt condescending. It felt like a mental game. Whatever it was, it caused the self-deprecating joke to fall flat. Freeman didn’t look happy.
“He was angry,” Xavier Watts, a Notre Dame safety, told the Athletic. “He was angry with the press conference thing, whatever was going on between that. He was mad about …