Penn State may target Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, per report
By Jacob Moss
Published:
The biggest coaching bombshell of the 2025 season was dropped over the weekend when the Penn State Nittany Lions officially fired longtime head coach James Franklin following the team’s third straight loss of the campaign.
Franklin had been the head man up in Happy Valley for 12 years, so his unceremonious departure from the program caught many off guard, even if the writing had been on the wall for a while.
Now, the program will have to find a replacement for him, and On3’s Pete Nakos is reporting that the Nittany Lions could make a run at Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman.
Freeman has been one of the fastest-rising stars in the coaching world since taking over for the departing Brian Kelly at the end of the 2021 campaign, and was the architect of Penn State’s College Football Playoff semifinal loss this past January.
He’s quickly proven that he can elevate a program to the level that Franklin largely failed to reach as the head coach of the Nittany Lions, so it makes sense that the powers that be in Happy Valley would want to pursue him.
Whether or not Freeman would have any real interest in leaving the Irish to coach for Penn State is an entirely different question altogether, but it never hurts to ask if you’re the Nittany Lions.
