When a long coaching tenure comes to an end, especially one as successful and transformative as James Franklin’s was for a Penn State program that appeared to be on the brink of collapse when he took over, post-mortems are natural. He has to share his side of the story to combat the program’s narrative.
That’s the way of things. That’s what Franklin did in his lengthy sit-down conversation with former Penn State tight end Adam Breneman earlier this offseason. Franklin laid out the regrets he had over straying from the one game at a time mentality he instilled in the program and the out-of-character hires he made that he felt led a program that was nearing the final rung of the college football ladder to slip and fall catastrophically to its death.
Now, Franklin is at it again, and he won’t stop talking about Penn State. This time, in a long-form interview with Ralph Russo of The Athletic, the new head coach of the Virginia Tech Hokies, along with rehashing some of the mistakes he wants to rectify in Blacksburg, he floated a new regret he has about his Penn State tenure: that it didn’t end sooner.
Asked by Russo point blank if he regrets not leaving for another opportunity sooner, Franklin said, “Yes,” Adding, “I say that because of how it ended,” Franklin said. “I didn’t feel like that at the time because when all these opportunities came, I turned them down because we were so close.”
James Franklin wishes he had left Penn State sooner
Franklin admitted that his feelings are colored by the exit. There aren’t many coaches who would’ve been fired midseason a year after playing in the College Football Playoff Semifinal with the resume that he had. However, the Oregon loss in Week 5 was just another example of the program coming up short in big games, and there was simply no way not to hold him accountable for that.
Virginia Tech has set him up for success with a major investment in the athletic department that was not there for his predecessor and now current defensive coordinator, Brent Pry. Still, if Franklin left during his ascent at Penn State or around the time of his first and only Big Ten title in 2016, he would have likely landed a comparable job to Penn State in either the Big Ten or the SEC.
Instead, because of obvious shortcomings in big games, the rare runaway narrative that accurately reflected reality, he was forced to settle for an ACC gig when the conference had never had less juice compared to the true Power 2.
Penn State fans wish he had won a big game
That’s all understandable. Penn State didn’t show him loyalty, so he regrets showing it himself when he was a hot name rumored for top jobs. But the regret shouldn’t be about not jumping ship; it should be about not winning those big games. It’s a cruel profession, but in a lot of ways, it’s one where you control your own destiny. Even just one or two more wins against Ohio State, Michigan, and Oregon, and Franklin would still be at Penn State, or have the leverage to land a better job than Virginia Tech.
He had his chances. Penn State gave him everything heading into 2025. The Nittany Lions paid up to retain a huge group of upperclassmen (which, in hindsight, was quite overrated), paid to completely rebuild the wide receiver room (which didn’t get any better with Franklin’s hand-picked transfers), and made Jim Knowles the highest-paid coordinator in the country after he helped lead Ohio State to the national championship.
He was not going to get better buy-in from whatever school he wished he had jumped ship to because Penn State was as all-in as any program could be. And what did he do with that? Lost another big game, then turned around and lost to UCLA and Northwestern back-to-back as the entire program he built turned to ash within three weeks. But sure, things definitely would have been better for him at Alabama, LSU, or whatever big-time job he believes he could have left for.
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