Would James Franklin make sense at Arkansas? Eh, it’s complicated
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When the dust settled on the stunning news that Penn State had fired James Franklin, plenty of Arkansas fans were fair to ask the question.
Would Franklin make sense at Arkansas?
After all, this is someone who hosted a top-10 matchup with a chance to potentially move into a No. 1 ranking on the same day that Sam Pittman coached his last game in Fayetteville. Coaches like that seldom become available in college football. This is someone who turned around Vanderbilt and got Penn State back to the national conversation after Bill O’Brien got the program off its feet in a post-Jerry Sandusky world. He’s a proven rebuilder who already took on the SEC‘s toughest job. He would also be the only Black head coach in the SEC at a time when that’s been nonexistent in the conference since Derek Mason was fired in 2020, which would be a unique advantage on the recruiting trail.
You’d better believe the question is being asked.
Franklin is now a free agent, which is different than other potential candidates like Rhett Lashlee (SMU), Alex Golesh (USF), Ryan Silverfield (Memphis) and plenty of others. You aren’t necessarily having to come over the top to give him a significant raise, nor would you have to pay the school he’s leaving an additional poaching fee. That’s a positive for Franklin, and one that would be there for basically nobody rumored for the job outside of Jon Gruden.
But unlike Gruden, a potential Franklin fit in Fayetteville would have some more complicated factors that would have to be considered.
Let’s start with the $49 million elephant in the room
That’s the buyout that Franklin got not to work at Penn State. He doesn’t need the money. Shoot, his kids’ kids won’t need the money. We don’t even know that Franklin wants to work or if he’d rather take a year off of coaching to reset, which is common among coaches in the 8-figure buyout era.
We’ve also seen coaches like Arkansas’s own Gus Malzahn, AKA the man who previously was No. 2 in the “richest buyout ever paid to a fired college football coach” category until Franklin, who opted to stay in coaching. He took the UCF job after Josh Heupel left for Tennessee, and it went poorly with a 4-year tenure that ended with him resigning. How much of that was because Malzahn had a $21 million buyout from Auburn and he wasn’t quite in the headspace needed in the program’s transition to the Big 12? Only he could answer that.
What we do know is that Franklin is owed more than double that and according to On3’s Pete Nakos, there’s some offset language in the buyout if he takes another job like Arkansas. Consider that another complicated factor. In some ways, ironically enough, perhaps it’s similar to the guy who could replace Franklin at Penn State. When Matt Rhule was fired from the Carolina Panthers, he had more than a $40 million buyout. Nebraska then hired Rhule and was on the hook for $34 million of that money. In Rhule’s own words at his introductory press conference at Nebraska, “I’m not making more money to work today than I would be if I was playing golf back in Charlotte … so this wasn’t a financial decision.” (H/T USA Today)
(He’s also got a contract that’ll have him eventually earning $12.5 million annually by 2030, so it’s fair to say that when the duration of the Panthers buyout runs out, it’ll be a financially beneficial decision.)
Has Rhule been motivated at Nebraska? Sure. In Year 2, he got the program to its first bowl berth in 8 years and at the midway point of Year 3, he’s got the 5-1 Huskers up to No. 25 in the AP Poll. Time will tell if Rhule can end his personal 18-game losing streak vs. AP Top 25 competition, which would also be Nebraska’s first win vs. a ranked foe since 2016.
There would be motivation questions that would need to be addressed with Franklin. It’d be brought up if he whiffed on a recruit, or if his team didn’t live up to expectations in a given year. Fair? Maybe not, but then again, it comes with the territory when someone is getting paid $49 million not to work another job.
The other elephant in the room is one that Arkansas knows all too well
I’m not sure if you heard this, but Franklin was 4-21 vs. AP Top 10 teams during his 12 seasons at Penn State. After 2 of those wins came in 2016, he went 2-16 vs. AP Top 10 teams from 2017-25. While the UCLA and Northwestern losses ultimately led to Franklin’s firing, let’s not forget that in the midst of a 2-score deficit against top-10 Oregon in a Whiteout, the Happy Valley faithful chanted “Fire Franklin.” Penn State fans eventually hated how evident his ceiling was.
Arkansas fans eventually hated how evident Pittman’s ceiling was, too. After that breakthrough season in 2021, he went 3-17 vs. AP Top 25 teams from 2022-25. While the 1-score losses ultimately led to Pittman’s firing, let’s not forget that in the midst of a matchup wherein the Hogs entered as 4.5-point underdogs against defending runner-up Notre Dame, the Fayetteville faithful emptied out at halftime.
Pittman’s successor cannot have a limited ceiling. Franklin was just fired in the middle of his 15th season as an FBS head coach, and that’s the overwhelming knock against him.
Even though Franklin deserves a ton of credit for the job he did in 3 seasons at Vanderbilt, it was a team who went 1-8 vs. AP Top 25 competition. He’s 17-37 (.315) lifetime vs. AP Top 25 teams. He was fighting an uphill battle with several of those teams, but if you want to just focus on 2015-25 at Penn State to get rid of his first season in State College and all of his time in Nashville, he’s 16-27 in those games. He’s also 1-15 vs. AP Top 5 teams in that time (Pittman was 1-6 in those games).
And just in case you’re still not convinced that Franklin has a ceiling based on the 12 seasons at Penn State, he went 2-13 vs. AP Top 25 teams in true road games. Just for a little perspective, Pittman was 1-13 in those contests.
If the whole point of hiring a coach is to address shortcomings of the previous regime, Franklin doesn’t exactly check those boxes.
And one last thing would give me some pause on Franklin
I don’t trust Franklin with quarterbacks. Period. Recruiting them, evaluating them, developing them, managing them … you name it. It hasn’t been a strength. Don’t believe that? This is someone who showed up with a former 5-star quarterback on the roster with a year of experience under his belt (Christian Hackenberg was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year before Franklin arrived), and he left with a former 5-star quarterback who was underachieving in Year 3 as a starter. That’s important context because when you see the NFL statistics of Franklin era QBs who left Penn State directly for the NFL Draft, you’ll be floored:
- 1 start
- 1 TD pass
And mind you, that came from Trace McSorley, who actually was a Vanderbilt recruit and followed Franklin after he got the Penn State job. McSorley was a 3-year star, and yet his final season was defined by a trio of key instances in which Franklin took the ball out of his hands with the game on the line.
More recently, Penn State opted for a 3rd year of Drew Allar while letting Beau Pribula hit the transfer portal. So far, the early returns on that decision look like when he opted to build around Sean Clifford instead of the outgoing Will Levis. Pribula leading Mizzou to the Playoff while Allar spends the rest of the season injured might not make it a perfectly fair side-by-side, but half a season’s worth of data suggests the former has the advantage.
Franklin is responsible for those decisions. Quarterback play is the best way to overcome a potential talent gap, and I’m not sure that Franklin can be trusted to make up the difference unless he’s got a $2 million defensive coordinator at his disposal to win low-scoring games.
All of this has to be considered if Arkansas wishes to pursue Franklin
Franklin is an interesting answer to a stat I like to bring up. He’s the last SEC head coach who willingly left the conference for another job. Nobody was surprised when the Pennsylvania native left Vanderbilt for Penn State at the end of the 2013 season.
Fast forward 12 years and nobody should be surprised if the 53-year-old Franklin wants another crack at a Power Conference job. Buyout money aside, this was someone who was a potential 4th-quarter touchdown drive away from reaching the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, and that was a mere 9 months ago. If there’s any desire for him to stay in coaching, a robust Power Conference market in the 2025 could make sense for Franklin to jump into. Time will tell if Arkansas would make sense for Franklin and vice versa.
He’s in an extremely unique spot after an extremely unique tenure at Penn State. If Arkansas plans on casting a net far and wide with this coaching search, Franklin might just emerge as a real option.
Whether it works out for all parties is a different question.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
