In Week 5, James Franklin did what he always does: lost to a top-10-ranked team in a big game. Then, in Week 6, James Franklin did what he never does: lost to a team he was expected to beat.
Penn State followed up its 30-24 two-overtime loss to Oregon in Happy Valley last week with a 42-37 defeat at the hands of previously winless UCLA at the Rose Bowl. A UCLA team that had already fired its head coach, DeShaun Foster, and this week moved on from its offensive coordinator, Tino Sunseri, for first-time play-caller Jerry Neuheisel.
The loss ended a streak of 52 games without a loss to an unranked opponent. It was the first such loss since October 23, 2021, when Illinois downed the No. 7-ranked Nittany Lions at Beaver Stadium. That 2021 season was also the last time that Penn State lost back-to-back games.
Franklin was supposed to be the perfect coach for the 12-team College Football Playoff era, because while he would lose the big tests against Ohio State, Oregon, Michigan, and the other Big Ten powerhouses, he’d win 10 games often enough to lead the Nittany Lions back to the CFP year after year. Surely, a big win would eventually come with that formula.
Instead, Franklin’s team looked unprepared, falling victim to the cross-country travel issues in the bloated 18-team Big Ten conference, which nearly cost him last season against USC. His defense had no answer for former five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava, and once again, his senior quarterback, Drew Allar, shrank in the clutch moments.
Those were all the arguments for keeping James Franklin, despite his inability to break through against the top opponents and deliver another Big Ten Championship after that magical 2016 season. Now, those arguments are gone. So, it’s hard for the program to justify keeping Franklin around behind his 12th season, but there is one significant obstacle.
Franklin is the 13th-highest-paid head coach in the country, getting paid a $7.5 million annual base salary on a 10-year $75 million contract extension that he signed back in 2021. His buyout heading into this season was estimated at $56 million, and would be somewhere around that $50 million mark if he were to be fired midseason. That’s one of the largest buyouts of any coach in the country, coming into the season ranking as the ninth most expensive in the sport, just behind Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.
Penn State’s all-in season has already gone bust
You can argue that Franklin had his breakthrough last season, leading Penn State to the College Football Playoff semifinal and falling just short to Notre Dame. The Nittany Lions' three losses last season came to the two teams that played for the national title and the undefeated Big Ten Champions and No. 1 seed in the CFP, Oregon.
Then, Franklin retained much of the veteran star power from last season’s roster, bringing back Allar, Nicholas Singleton, Kaytron Allen, four offensive line starters, Dani Dennis-Sutton, Zane Durant, and plenty of others who could have left for the NFL or the transfer portal. He added three wide receivers from the Transfer Portal, and even plucked defensive coordinator Jim Knowles off Ohio State’s staff. And it hasn’t worked.
Penn State is now 3-2, with wins over Nevada, FIU, and Villanova. That team doesn’t deserve to be ranked and has almost zero chance of beating Ohio State or even Indiana. The CFP may already be an impossibility for the Nittany Lions. That’s unacceptable, and it has to fall on the head coach.
It won’t be cheap to fire Franklin, but with all that veteran talent in its final year of eligibility and a potential re-tooling season on the way in 2026, it could be even more costly to keep him.