Former Penn State head coach James Franklin joined ESPN's College GameDay crew on Saturday in Athens, Ga. just six days after the Nittany Lions (3-3, 0-3 Big Ten) fired him. In his exclusive interview on set, Franklin had the same PR copy-and-paste answers as he did sitting in press conferences while he was still representing the blue and white.
"Well, fair is not for me to decide, right? That's for other people to decide. A decision that was made, that was hard for me to comprehend at the time," Franklin said when asked if he felt like he was treated fairly with Penn State's. "But, what I want to do is I want to focus on all the unbelievable moments. I had a great run there. Twelve years, Penn State was good to me and my family."
Franklin responses felt avoidant of any raw emotion. Though he wasn't going to go on set and bad-mouth his former team, he had no hints of being upset or disappointed in the decision from a personal point of view. He wore the coaches hat the entire interview. For Franklin, it was all business.
He even said that his heart breaks the most for how many people this decision affects, from the coaching staff to the players to all of their families. It's an unselfish sentiment coming from the former coach, but at no point did he pair it with his own feelings, something that would've made his interview feel more real than staged. Franklin felt so far removed from the interview that Nick Saban stepped in and offered the most emotionally raw response to the firing.
James Franklin was as emotional on Saturday as he was when he was Penn State's head coach who lost the locker room
Franklin's job in coaching isn't over. He knows that and his interview on Saturday showed that he knows that too. He avoided any comment that could be misconstrued, kept his image intact, and put himself in a position to be a prime coaching candidate for another program.
"Most importantly, it's about the players. I'm a players' coach, I always have been," Franklin said College GameDay. "So, that's the hardest part: is walking away from all those young men in that locker room, the recruits that were committed to us."
Kirk Herbstreit also asked Franklin about the reflection process, specifically looking back at the game against Oregon. He asked Franklin how things changed so quickly and if winning that game in double overtime would have kept Penn State strong and him employed.
Rather than offer his true reflection, he danced around the answer and didn't fail to mention his resume while he was at it.
"I can't answer that," Franklin said. "To be honest with you, I'm still working through it myself. It feels surreal . . . I've been doing this for 30 years, 15 years as a head coach . . . I really can't answer that, Kirk. Twelve years, a ton of good moments, a bunch of big wins, but decisions were made."