By now, you know the story. Penn State, coming off a season that ended one drive away from the national championship game, entered the 2025 season as the No. 2 team in the country with a veteran-laden roster and title expectations. Now, seven weeks into the season, James Franklin’s tenure in Happy Valley is done.
It’s hard to imagine a quicker or more shocking demise in college football, and Penn State fans aren’t the only ones stunned. Now, at 3-3 without a Power 4 win so far this season, the Nittany Lions will have to carry on with Terry Smith as their interim coach, and for much of the roster, play out their final season of eligibility, knowing it’s the end of an era in Happy Valley.
For team captain and sixth-year senior center Nick Dawkins, Franklin’s firing won’t be easy to get over.
“For us as players, it's an overwhelming sense of guilt like we got our coach fired because we didn't play well enough. We didn't do our job good enough, and now he doesn't have a job anymore,” Dawkins told the media on Tuesday.
Redshirt senior center Nick Dawkins feels the weight of James Franklin’s firing
Dawkins is one of several players who returned for their final season of eligibility with hopes of making a national championship run. The Penn State offense alone was comprised of eight starters (not including one of the two running backs, Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton) in their final season of eligibility before quarterback Drew Allar suffered his season-ending ankle injury in the 22-21 loss to Northwestern on Saturday.
It was a roster that many expected to compete with Ohio State for the Big Ten crown, and one that largely followed the model of the Buckeyes and Michigan, the last two national champions, who supplemented experienced rosters with Transfer Portal additions at key positions to gear up for their run. However, that same formula yielded very different results in Happy Valley.
In some ways, Franklin’s shortcomings are his own. You don’t build up a 4-21 record against top 10 opponents in one season, or even over a four, five, or six-year stretch of any single player’s career. However, it was this year’s team that failed to respond after that 21st loss, coming at home in front of a White Out crowd to start the slide.
A week after that double-overtime defeat, the Nittany Lions laid an egg against previously winless UCLA in Pasadena and blew any chance of salvaging the season for a College Football Playoff bid. The Northwestern loss was icing on the cake.
You have to feel for Dawkins and the rest of the roster; it can’t be easy, it can’t be easy to carry those feelings and carry on without your head coach. However, you also have to worry about the rest of the season and Penn State’s chance to make a bowl game because that quote doesn’t sound like the leader of a team about to make a turnaround.