Penn State football shot itself in the foot firing its former head coach James Franklin midseason. At the time when the Nittany Lions lost to Northwestern, his seat was in flames and the news of his dismissal didn't come as a shock. Still, it was a controversial decision — and it still is.
Since firing Franklin, Florida, Colorado State, LSU, Auburn, Cal, Michigan State, Coastal Carolina, and Kentucky followed suit and gave their respective head coaches the boot. Before Penn State made its move, UCLA, Arkansas, Oklahoma State, and Virginia Tech fired their coaches.
Of those 12 teams, 10 filled their position. This includes the Hokies bringing in Franklin on Nov. 17. The Nittany Lions are still searching with Coastal Carolina and Cal, who fired their coaches on Nov. 30 and and Nov. 23, respectively, over a month after Penn State moved on from Franklin.
When Franklin was fired, Happy Valley was the hottest spot on the job board. As Florida's and LSU's jobs opened, Penn State wasn't the clearcut best job on the market, but it was still an elite program compared to the rest. With programs hiring their next head coach, that's just another name off the board for the Nittany Lions to jump on.
Now without a thought of who the next head coach will be, it's worrisome for the Nittany Lions. It's not just teams that fired their head coaches they're going up against either. They're up against teams, like Ole Miss, that lost their head coach because they jumped ship to a different program. The competition isn't getting easier in the coaching carousel, and as more time goes by, the more Penn State gets forgotten.
On top of watching other teams secure their futures, the Nittany Lions also see ideal options sign extensions with their current team. First it was Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti and Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule. Texas A&M's Mike Elko, Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz, Vanderbilt's Clark Lea, and BYU's Kalani Sitake are also part of that group.
Penn State made itself vulnerable too early, and it can't recover
If athletic director Pat Kraft digs deep enough, there are still candidates to choose from, but with the way the carousel treated Penn State so far, any potential 'yes' either signs a contract extension very soon after hopes rise or goes to a different open position.
Kraft has no grip on the head coach search, but there was no way he could have known that the carousel would become this chaotic. Unless he saw it through with Franklin.
Franklin hit his ceiling at Penn State, and in order for the program to reach new heights, his dismissal was on its way in. The midseason firing, though, put the program in an extremely vulnerable position.
Even if Kraft had a plan as to who his top candidate was or three candidates were, there was no way to ensure a hire in Week 7 of the regular season. All the top picks, like Cignetti and Drinkwitz, were too committed to their teams (and for good reason) to drop everything and head on over to Penn State. Like any other coach, excluding from Lane Kiffin, they weren't allowing external distractions disrupt the current season. Their consideration of Penn State was always going to be prolonged. With all the firing going on around the country, it gave their schools a perfect reason to do everything they could to keep their coach locked down.
Penn State should have known it wasn't getting better than James Franklin
The Nittany Lions' situation went from questionable to bad to worse to potentially the worst. There's no idea as to where the program is going in the future because right now, there's no one leading it and it doesn't look like there will be a home run hire in there.
There was never a guarantee that Penn State got its perfect, program-defining head coach. Sticking with Franklin would've allowed Kraft to watch everything on the outside unfold and make a logical decision, not an emotional one. Even with the downhill spiral of the 2025 season, there was a zero percent chance anyone was turning that around to reach the season's expectations, whether it was Franklin or interim head coach Terry Smith. At least keeping Franklin would have secured some sort of eliteness to the program moving forward.
Before Franklin got hired at Virginia Tech, he was the best name out there for Penn State to grab, and it's clear that Franklin was as good as it was getting.