LOS ANGELES — James Franklin came close to coaching in the Rose Bowl 19 years ago, he was just a few weeks too late.
Franklin got his first Football Bowl Subdivision coaching gig as a tight ends coach at Washington State in 1998, starting the month after the Cougars played in “The Granddaddy of Them All.”
“I drove my 1988 Honda Accord with 160,000 miles from Philadelphia to Pullman, Washington,” Franklin said at Rose Bowl media day Friday. “I showed up a month after the Rose Bowl. So up to this point that was the closest I got.