Commentary: Penn State's firing of James Franklin seems shortsighted

James Franklin had Penn State ranked No. 3 in the country and on the short list of teams that could win the national championship just three weeks ago. Then he lost to No. 6 Oregon, which brought out the Penn State PTSD about his inability to win big games. Then he had an embarrassing loss at UCLA, which he blamed in part on travel. Then he did the unthinkable and lost at home to Northwestern. Now he finds himself out of a job less than a year after he led Penn State to the College Football Playoff semifinals, as he was fired Sunday. Since the start of the 2022 season, only three coaches have won more games than Franklin. They are Kirby Smart and Ryan Day, who happen to run perhaps the two best programs in the country, and Kalen DeBoer, who is at Alabama. Franklin had posted three consecutive 10-plus-win seasons prior to this year and was in the Big Ten championship game last season. Now he is fired, and Penn State was so adamant he needed to go that he will be paid a buyout somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million to go away. It is everything wrong with this new era of college athletics all rolled up in a nutshell and it is based in lunacy, as well as the same kind of unfounded arrogance that led to Franklin's downfall in the first place. I firmly believe Franklin would still be the coach at Penn State if he didn't alienate many of the people who could have sent him a lifeline. He was arrogant to a point of it almost becoming nauseating, especially considering his well-documented failures against top-five and top-10 teams. He won enough to feel good about his program. He did not win enough to act like he was some elite power coach who was untouchable. He never understood that, and that was a big reason why it was so easy for Penn State's administration to pull a $50 million trigger and get rid of him. I don't believe Franklin should have been fired and I don't think Penn State will end up in a better place no matter who they hire. He had them at the top of the college football world and knocking on the door to become elite. Now they are going to start over, probably with someone who doesn't have as good of a record as Franklin did over the past three years or even overall. Let's not forget he inherited a program that was still smoldering and in disarray because of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Franklin inherited that mess in 2014 and became Big Ten champs and in playoff contention by 2016. The Nittany Lions were 34-8 overall and 22-5 in Big Ten games in the three seasons prior to this one and they played in a New Year's Six (or whatever the designation for those games is these days) bowl game in two years and the playoff in the other. That's why the decision to fire him was the typical lazy overreaction that comes from an administration and alumni/donor base that is delusional. It is also the lunacy this new era in college athletics of "getting bags" and "money trumps everything else" will continue to feed. Greed has led to delusions of grandeur, and that has led to idiotic decisions like this one. Franklin earned the right to finish this season and then try to get it right next season. There is something to be said about giving a guy a chance to get it right, especially a guy who has earned the benefit of the doubt. Good athletic directors, good administrations work with a coach who has had a lot of success but is in the midst of a down season to see if they can find a solution before they get to the $50 million nuclear option. By all accounts, Franklin recruited at a high level. By all accounts, Franklin has compiled a great coaching staff. And by all accounts, his players loved playing for him. Stuff like this used to matter, but in the era of "money, money, money," it apparently doesn't. His players graduated, and you rarely heard about his players getting in trouble and embarrassing the university. Why on earth would you not want to work with that guy to see if there are some things that could change about his program to get it back to elite status and then over the top? Maybe there are some duties you could relieve him of. Maybe there are some things about his staff that could change, etc., etc. The worst thing that could happen is you suffer through a 7-5 season this year and an 8-4 season next year and then you fire him for a lot less money and also knowing you gave a coach who did a lot of great things for your program a chance to get it right. Meanwhile, the best thing that could happen is he figures some things out, they win eight or nine games this year, go to a nice bowl game and next year get right back to challenging for the top 10 and beyond. I am not saying that would have happened, but it would be the quickest path for Penn State getting right back to contending for titles again. And who knows? If Franklin knocked on the door to a championship enough times, it might open for him. Now you have an interim coach in Terry Smith, who is tremendous, by the way, and I hope he becomes the permanent coach. Recruits are jumping ship. Players are now checking in with their agents in hopes of positioning themselves for the transfer portal, and it is far more likely this team finishes 6-6 (or worse) than this causing some sort of spark. Then, next year, Penn State will be starting over with a new coach, new program, new philosophy, etc., etc. It will likely have to be a rebuilt roster with a ton of transfers coming through, and it is very hard to pull off a successful season that way. That is especially true because I can already see the delusional wing of the fan base acting as if Penn State will have its choice of the power coaches on the market. They are almost assuredly going to be underwhelmed once the hire is actually made. These are different times, and there are going to be a lot of big-time jobs open, which means a lot of competition for the top coaches. Maybe I will be surprised and Penn State will end up with an actual upgrade over Franklin, but when I hear the names of guys being "at the top of the list" whose record isn't as good as Franklin's despite being in the same league, it makes me chuckle. I covered Pitt for a lot of years and always heard the argument of "this guy can't get us to the next level," and it led to idiocy like firing Dave Wannstedt to hire Mike Haywood and then Todd Graham. If by "next level" Pitt meant going from a team that contended for Big East titles to the laughingstock of college football, well, congrats! It was accomplished. I am not saying Franklin was without flaws, and again, his seat absolutely should have been getting extremely warm. It was just premature. He had earned the right to try to fix whatever mess he created. This is where the delusional part comes in, though, and that is this stuff about how Penn State went all in to try to get it right and allocated resources, promised facilities, upped the NIL and all that stuff and it "clearly wasn't working," which is silly. They lost a few games in a row — nothing more, nothing less. I always ask Penn State people what "next level" is for them because to me, contending for Big Ten titles and getting to college football's Final Four seems pretty darn close to whatever that level is. And let's be honest — when was the last time Penn State achieved this "next level" I keep hearing about? Penn State hasn't won a national title since 1986 and hasn't had a claim to one since 1994. That is 31 years for those keeping score at home. All of the people yearning for the next Joe Paterno seem to forget that in his last 26 years as coach, he achieved that "next level" once, in 1994, and it still didn't produce a national title. Paterno was the coach at Penn State for a bazillion years and he only achieved "next level" six times — twice in the 1960s for goodness sake! — and none in his last 17 years. He only won two national titles. He also has that big Sandusky stain on his legacy, but that's a different conversation for a different day. The fact of the matter is this next-level stuff is mostly fiction. Franklin had Penn State so close to what its "next level" is that to cut and run now after a couple of bad games is ridiculous. I get it — it is the way of the world in college athletics now, but I don't have to like it and I certainly don't have to call it smart or good business. I wish Penn State well in their quest for the "next level," but as someone who watched Pitt wallow around for more than a decade after firing Wannstedt, I have my doubts they are going to get the bang for their $50 million.