There’s danger to firing a coach like James Franklin, who consistently knocked on the door, but never quite broke through. Sure, if you get it right, you could go from Mark Richt to Kirby Smart, but if you get it wrong, you could go from winning ten games under Bo Pellini to seven years without a bowl game appearance.
The grass isn’t always greener, and while Franklin’s losses to UCLA and Northwestern all but forced the program’s hand, there is immense pressure to get this next hire right. At least $50 million worth of pressure, the buyout Penn State agreed to pay to move on from the coach who returned the program to Big Ten contention and won double-digit games six times over 11 seasons.
The grass certainly won’t be greener if Penn State hires one of these head coaches, who are emerging as candidates with varying levels of plausibility.
The most unlikely name on this list is Urban Meyer, but he’ll inevitably be mentioned with his three national championships and his few years of youth compared to Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, the dream candidate for the job.
However, Meyer’s brief foray into the NFL was a disaster, wrought with scandal like the end of his tenure at Ohio State. Meyer is from another era, and there are plenty of reasons that he hasn’t been coached in the college ranks since 2018. It won’t happen, but if Penn State hired Meyer, there’s a much better chance of it going up in flames than resulting in a national title.
Florida fans might be missing Dan Mullen after enduring four years of Billy Napier, but, like Meyer, there are reasons he’s no longer leading a power conference program, though much less scandalous ones. Mullen is a great offensive mind, but he couldn’t recruit at an SEC level, and the roster continued to erode across his four years in Gainesville.
There are different ways to acquire talent now, and general managers to lead that charge, but to keep pace with Ohio State, Oregon, and Michigan, you have to bring in the same caliber of athletes, and Mullen doesn’t have much proof of that on his resume. He’s perfect for UNLV and should probably stay in Vegas.
After a failed tenure as the head coach of Miami, Diaz was a stellar defensive coordinator for two seasons in Franklin’s staff in Happy Valley. Now, he’s kept Duke as a perennial ACC contender, a level that current Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko elevated the program to.
However, Diaz already had his chance leading a powerhouse program and went 21-15 across three seasons in a much less competitive league than the current Big Ten. Diaz is a good defensive mind and a perfect fit for Duke, but you don’t pay Franklin’s $50 million buyout to hire a retread who was on his staff.