The echoes were louder than ever: It was time for Penn State to fire James Franklin
By David Wasson
Published:
You could almost hear it, echoing through the trees and hillsides, rolling down from the central-Pennsylvania Adirondacks like whispers in the wind. They got louder, those grumbles, building to a chorus as they approached the intersection of East Park Avenue and Porter Road.
“This isn’t Penn State football.”
“We Are Penn State, and we are bad.”
“Fire James Franklin.”
It was inevitable, the dismissal of James Geoffrey Franklin on Sunday from his post as head football coach at Pennsylvania State University. Losing to woeful UCLA on the road and then laying an egg against perennial Big Ten also-ran Northwestern has a way of accumulating unsolicited For Sale signs on your front lawn.
Didn’t we always see this coming for the coach sarcastically known as Little Game James? Didn’t we see the all-too-familiar tandem of the awkward press conference/negotiated contract buyout on the horizon for Franklin for a couple years now?
Sure and sure, because that’s how the business of big-time college football works. Coaches are hired to be fired, and rare is the one who survives at a university long enough to retire from it.
But the case of PSU vs. James Franklin is also a bit of an indictment of how being good isn’t good enough. The stats make that case, as Franklin’s 104-42 final record in Happy Valley equates to a .712 winning percentage. The only other PSU coach in the past 100 years to be over .700? Yeah, you know his name.
But Penn State wants more, demands more. Penn State wants the national success Joe Paterno brought to the Nittany Lions program – the national titles in 1982 and 1986 and the Big Ten crowns in 1994, 2005 and 2009. Penn State demands that from a coach that has won a ton of games (as well as his own Big Ten title in 2016) but never seems to get it done in the truly big moments.
That’s why Franklin was summoned back to Pennsylvania, not too far from his childhood home in Langhorne and from East Stroudsburg where he matriculated. He was tapped by Penn State not just to win a bunch of games, but to win championships. To deliver trophies. To re-apply a fresh shine to a program that once meant winning the right way and was still emerging from the shadows of sin.
Franklin did plenty of the latter, it is true. The 11-3 title team in 2016 was proof of concept that Franklin could win, as were 11-win seasons in 2017, 2019 and 2022. And 2024 saw Penn State get as close to winning the big enchilada has it had with Paterno back in 1986 – as the Nittany Lions rumbled through the first 2 rounds of the College Football Playoff before falling to Notre Dame 27-24 in the CFP semis.
But boy, do those halcyon moments seem like a distant memory. Cupcake Ws against Nevada, FIU and Villanova had the Nittany Lions maintain their preseason No. 2 ranking heading into the first real test of the 2025 slate. And yes, Penn State did rally to force free football before falling to No. 6 Oregon 30-24 at home on Sept. 27. But still, who saw what was next?
Yes, we know getting embarrassed by a then-winless Bruins team at a half-empty Rose Bowl was one thing. Every team endures a hiccup now and then, right? But to then turn around and welcome Northwestern so cheerfully to Happy Valley that the Wildcats departed with a 22-21 upset win?
The UCLA/Northwestern Unhappy Meal gave Franklin the dubious honor of becoming the first coach to lose consecutive games when favored by 20 points or more – ever. And the resultant blowback — all those whispers and echoes and grumble-choruses — is quickly becoming a cacophony that cannot be ignored any longer.
Which is why Franklin had to go. Oh sure, he won 70 percent of his games at Penn State without much whiffs of malfeasance or shame. Oh sure, he might have only been 4-21 against Top 10 teams… but Penn State still put out a quality product on most fall Saturday afternoons, one to actually be proud of.
But again, good is often the enemy of great. And good simply doesn’t cut it anymore for Penn State – not after seeing UCLA students meekly try to storm their home field after an upset win and then watching freaking Northwestern celebrate in Beaver Stadium.
The time was now for James Franklin and Penn State to assemble their divorce lawyers and draw up the papers, the final bill costing PSU a reported $49 million buyout.
The Rubicon in State College had been crossed, and there was no turning back.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
