Starting a football season in Ireland is the last thing a new coach needs.

For James Franklin, there already was enough to deal with at Penn State. But taking the job back in January also meant investing countless extra staff hours on the "logistical nightmare" of shipping 118 players to another country this week ... only to rush them back to prepare for another game.Of course, Franklin had enough other things to be concerned with during his introduction, like his shallow offensive line and depth at linebacker and trying to build crucial momentum from the start. This could well be the toughest year of dealing with NCAA sanctions.And so playing Central Florida in Ireland is good for the fans, and maybe the publicity machine at Penn State. But for the players and coaches?On one hand, it could be the perfect team-building kind of trip, especially for all of those rookies who will be depended on. A victory could inject confidence and start a perfect run through at least the end of September.However, playing the Croke Park Classic in Dublin also could simply exhaust players and disrupt continuity built by the staff over the past seven months. A sloppy loss so far from home against a green quarterback could be deflating in a way that simmers and hangs around.There could be more baggage from a bad performance in Ireland than there was from a bad performance in Bill O'Brien's debut at home against Ohio.And yet, truly consider the man leading this team now. He just may be the perfect coach for this kind of challenge.This situation begs for high-energy leaders, and Franklin goes a level or two beyond that. Same for most every member of his staff.This trip requires that but also plenty of perspective and balance. This isn't comparable to a two-week bowl journey with amusement parks and beach days.Franklin has repeatedly called this a business trip."The hard part is everybody keeps talking about what a great cultural experience for the players, but it's not like we are going to be touring the countryside," Franklin said. "We have a tight schedule."We have to make sure our guys have an unbelievable experience at Penn State and get their degrees, and a degree that means something, so that once they graduate, they can afford to go on a vacation back to Ireland ..."But this trip really isn't for that.That's part of why we will learn more about Franklin in the upcoming week than we ever would otherwise.It's one thing to see how he handles his players against this kind of confident opponent to start a season at home. It's another to do it in a hostile road environment in the States, something Penn State hasn't done in at least 20 years.And it's an all together different challenge doing it in a foreign country.This goes beyond even how well Franklin and his staff can prepare their new players for doing football tasks their way in a relatively short period of time. This trip will accentuate his abilities to motivate, to focus his players and to pace them in a setting so different from every other team in the nation.Almost certainly, Franklin wouldn't have chosen this sort of start to his Penn State career (What other football coaches have to concern themselves with a volcano in Iceland?).And yet, in another way, this kind of challenge was exactly why he was hired in the first place.