Fire James Franklin

[EnzoLigoniere]

Now one of 4 ranked teams since 1936 to lose to a team without a win.
everyone still defending him this week.

Preaseason #2, highest paid defensive coordinator, best rb tandem, qb in discussion to be first round pick, 3 top end experienced wr.

lost to UCLA who had not lead in any of their 3 loses,

[abpk2903]

Yeah, he probably needs to be fired. Haha

[Manfred]

UCLA lost to Northwestern. Who does PSU have this week? Northwestern.

[EnzoLigoniere]

so now we have losses to Ucla and Northwestern
highest paid defensive coordinator in NCAA
playoffs are over
maybe not even a winning season - Ohio State and Indiana are most likely losses
they are losing recruits now
preseason #2
where are the Franklin supporters?

[footballfan1]

Well, you got your wish.

[EnzoLigoniere]

he got what he deserved, unemployment

[ERAChamp]

End of the Franklin era at Penn State. Hard to defend him after these last 2 losses, as it seems he lost the team. However, the timing is strange - look how many HS recruits have already decommitted. Not going to get your replacement coach until after the season & possibly hold onto some of the recruits, so why fire him now??

[WallyPipp]

If you watched his press conference after the game on Saturday it was pretty apparent that he was completely sunk in his own mind. Franklin has always been overly positive in his approach. Not quite to the level of PJ Fleck at Minnesota but pretty close. He had zero fire or optimism after the game vs Northwestern and really seemed like he had checked out. If that's how he was portraying himself to the media, I doubt it was much different to the team. I don't think Franklin left the university much choice. PSU will deal with this for many years to come. Their current players have 4 weeks to enter the transfer portal, go to a new school and be immediately eligible to play this season since the HC was fired mid-season. They're not likely to name a replacement coach until after the season ends so any sort of recruiting that will be done for the 2026 class is going to take a serious hit. Whoever ends up being the next HC will have to lean heavily into the portal for 2026. This is going to have a long tail on how it plays out. I do think it's going to be interesting to see how much different their offense looks for the rest of 2025. Naturally it's going to be different with a new QB, but I've always wondered how much Franklin handcuffed the OC's ability to call plays. There's been many OC's during Franklin's tenure as HC at PSU, but the offense has always seemed to sputter and putt it's way through games. Hardly ever has it been a well oiled machine except for the final year of Barkley and Tyler Warren last year. In those year's they had the best player on the field in almost every game they played.

[Goldeneagles12]

I know Kraft and Penn State will deny it if it's true. But does anyone think the reports of Adidas helping get Franklin fired are true?

[CCDevil2012]

If you watched his press conference after the game on Saturday it was pretty apparent that he was completely sunk in his own mind. Franklin has always been overly positive in his approach. Not quite to the level of PJ Fleck at Minnesota but pretty close. He had zero fire or optimism after the game vs Northwestern and really seemed like he had checked out. If that's how he was portraying himself to the media, I doubt it was much different to the team. I don't think Franklin left the university much choice. PSU will deal with this for many years to come. Their current players have 4 weeks to enter the transfer portal, go to a new school and be immediately eligible to play this season since the HC was fired mid-season. They're not likely to name a replacement coach until after the season ends so any sort of recruiting that will be done for the 2026 class is going to take a serious hit. Whoever ends up being the next HC will have to lean heavily into the portal for 2026. This is going to have a long tail on how it plays out. I do think it's going to be interesting to see how much different their offense looks for the rest of 2025. Naturally it's going to be different with a new QB, but I've always wondered how much Franklin handcuffed the OC's ability to call plays. There's been many OC's during Franklin's tenure as HC at PSU, but the offense has always seemed to sputter and putt it's way through games. Hardly ever has it been a well oiled machine except for the final year of Barkley and Tyler Warren last year.

My assumption was he already knew he was gone at the presser. I don’t think he was handcuffing his coordinators, they just haven’t had the same level of athletes recently, most notably in the WR room. They went through a great stretch of seemingly producing NFL wideouts yearly, Dodson, Hamler, Godwin, Washington, Hamilton, etc but it has not been as deep the last 5 years. Which has made it harder on Allar. Meanwhile Ohio State has had room fulls of NFL wideouts which has made their QB’s look phenomenal only to often not pan out in NFL.

As for the portal rule, the NCAA did away with the 30 day window. It currently doesn’t open until 5 days after the permanent coach is announced and it’s open for 15 days after that.