Replacing James Franklin: Looking for the Next Penn State Football Head Coach

Man. This coaching search is intense. There are so many names that make sense. There are so many different ways that this could go. I don't want to consider every possibility, but I do want to address a ton of them.

As we look to possibilities, it's important to note that the next Penn State coach will inherit a generally strong program. There's this bizarre notion floating around that James Franklin inherited a nightmare; that's false. Bill O'Brien inherited a nightmare. It's true that the PSU job had significant issues in 2014 when JFF arrived due to a continuing postseason ban and scholarship reductions, but it was nothing like what BOB took over.

Moving to the job, there are two big thoughts that permeate my consideration:

1. Surely an offensive coach is the way to go in 2025...right? This is how I interpreted the Bears' head coaching search at the beginning of the year. Getting an offensive mastermind to pair with a rotating cast of defensive coordinators should be a path to success. So, while it isn't necessary, I'd lean toward an offensive coach.
2. Adam Breneman indicated that sources told him that the new PSU head coach will be the highest-paid coach in all of college football. Penn State is jumping into the deep end. So, nobody gets kept from the list for financial reasons.

With that said, let's get to the list. I decided to limit myself to a very lucky 21 names. Which is a ton. A ton. But the search is so broad at this point that it's worth at least mentioning these guys. Let's go!

21. Lane Kiffin (Mississippi head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Kiffin has had plenty of success, specifically with quarterbacks. You'd think that his defenses would be better given that his dad was star NFL defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, but the offensive production is there.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: So many reasons, but for now, we'll limit this to the fact that Kiffin is a terrible cultural fit at conservative Penn State.
• Plausibility: Long shot
• Rob's Excitement Level: Very low

20. Nick Saban (media personality)

• Why He Makes Sense: He's Nick Saban. Come on.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Saban appears to have very little interest in getting back into coaching. He's 74 this week.
• Plausibility: Extreme long shot
• Rob's Excitement Level: Pretty low

19. Urban Meyer (media personality)

• Why He Makes Sense: He's Urban Meyer. Come on.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: There are some concerns about Meyer's fit in the new era of college football where players have more power. His stint with the Jacksonville Jaguars was famously disastrous.
• Plausibility: Long shot
• Rob's Excitement Level: Exceptionally low

18. Terry Smith (Penn State interim head coach and cornerbacks coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Smith is a Penn State lifer and a top-level recruiter.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: At 56, Smith hasn't even been a coordinator. He'd be overmatched taking over the Penn State job.
• Plausibility: Extreme long shot
• Rob's Excitement Level: Very low (but I do hope that Terry Smith comes back at CB coach)

17. Lincoln Riley (USC head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Offense, offense, and more offense. Riley has produced some of the strongest results of any college coach in recent memory...
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: ...but not recently. And Riley hasn't coached or recruited in the northeast or DMV area. He's also the head coach at USC; Penn State isn't an upgrade for him.
• Plausibility: Extreme long shot
• Rob's Excitement Level: Medium

[note: there's a massive gap in my interest level from #17 to #16 and following]

16. Manny Diaz (Duke head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Diaz has experience in State College after a successful two-year stint as defensive coordinator. He's from recruiting-rich southeast Florida. He has P4 head coaching experience at Miami and Duke.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: That head coaching experience isn't great, especially at Miami. Despite his experience at PSU, he very much isn't a native son and he's a defensive coach. The fit with current defensive coordinator Jim Knowles is nightmare fuel; Knowles would be asked to leave.
• Plausibility: Unlikely
• Rob's Excitement Level: Modest

15. Clark Lea (Vanderbilt head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: He's winning at Vanderbilt. After winning SEC Coach of the Year in 2024 for going 7-6, he's got the Commodores at 7-1.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: He's from Nashville and went to Vanderbilt. He spent a couple of years at Syracuse, but otherwise hasn't been in the northeast. Defensive background.
• Plausibility: Unlikely
• Rob's Excitement Level: Rather low (but he's probably a better choice than Brady)

14. Pat Fitzgerald (high school volunteer)

• Why He Makes Sense: Fitzgerald won 110 games at Northwestern. Northwestern. Fitzgerald was long though to be on the short list to replace Joe Paterno whenever the time came. He's from Big Ten country (Illinois). He had three 10-win seasons at Northwestern. Respect for winning at places that traditionally stink.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Fitzgerald hasn't coached in three years. His last two Northwestern teams combined to go 4-20. The hazing scandal that got him fired isn't the freshest, but it's not a good look.
• Plausibility: Long shot
• Rob's Excitement Level: Moderate

13. Joe Brady (Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator)

• Why He Makes Sense: Brady checks a ton of boxes. Like Diaz, he's from recruiting-rich southeast Florida. He was a graduate assistant at Penn State for two years in 2015-16. He has NFL coordinator experience. He has always coached on the offensive side of the ball. 2019 LSU: wow! He has a Broyles Award on his mantle. And it's tough to argue with what Josh Allen has become.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Only two years as an offensive coordinator. Never a head coach. Unclear whether he actually want to be a college coach.
• Plausibility: Medium
• Rob's Excitement Level: Medium

12. Ryan Silverfield (Memphis head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Silverfield has turned Memphis into arguably the top G5 program in the country. Memphis went 10-3 in 2023, 11-2 in 2024, and is 7-1 with a clear path to the CFP in 2025. Silverfield is on track for a P4 job this winter. He also has NFL experience. He's an offensive line coach by nature.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Everything else. He's from Jacksonville, Florida with no experience in the northeast at all. 
• Plausibility: Not the longest of long shots...but not likely, either
• Rob's Excitement Level: Sneaky high

11. Will Stein (Oregon offensive coordinator)

• Why He Makes Sense: Stein's offenses have been very productive. It helps that he's had elite quarterback play between Dillon Gabriel and Dante Moore, but Stein's units have worked. His geographic experience isn't helpful, but could he be the offensive version of Dan Lanning? Maybe.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: He's from Louisville and has since coached in Texas and Oregon. He has only been a coordinator for three seasons.
• Plausibility: Extremely high -- if PSU offered, Stein would surely take the job
• Rob's Excitement Level: Moderate -- I'm intrigued

10. Matt Rhule (Nebraska head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: This has been covered plenty. Rhule is a Penn State letterman from State College Area High School. Tons of experience in the northeast. He secured consecutive 10-win seasons at Temple. He won 11 games at Baylor. He has improved each year at Nebraska and has them in line for a meaningfully successful year in 2025. Rhule also has NFL experience as a head coach, record notwithstanding. He has longstanding connections with Penn State Athletic Director Pat Kraft.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Franklin was fired when the 2025 season fell apart against UCLA and Northwestern, but he has on thin ice because of his inability to beat top-level competition. Rhule's Temple teams beat #21 East Carolina in 2014, #21 Memphis in 2015, and #20 Navy in 2016. That's it for ranked wins. Rhule could plausibly go 10-2 this year...and 0-1 against ranked opponents. He has brought Nebraska back to respectability, but can that really be enough?
• Plausibility: High
• Rob's Excitement Level: Medium-low

9. Matt Campbell (Iowa State head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: He's from eastern Ohio and spent all of his coaching career in Ohio until taking the Iowa State job in 2016. Campbell has been good at Iowa State. Not great, but good. In the decade before Campbell arrived, Iowa State has one winning season, going 7-6 in 2009. Campbell has seven winning seasons in nine years. Winning at a bad program is impressive.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: What's the ceiling here? It probably isn't that high. Campbell isn't going to energize the program.
• Plausibility: Reasonably high
• Rob's Excitement Level: Pretty low 

8. Eliah Drinkwitz (Missouri head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Drinkwitz has built Missouri into a legitimate contender and his recruiting has really picked up. He has an offensive background.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Drinkwitz hasn't lived or worked in the northeast at all. But he's a highly successful coach in the SEC; this isn't the biggest concern.
• Plausibility: Medium
• Rob's Excitement Level: Medium-plus

7. Kalen DeBoer (Alabama head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: DeBoer has won everywhere. He's 120-17 as a head coach! He went 25-3 at Washington! He's an offensive coach with big success at every stop. As a South Dakota native whose entire pre-Alabama career was spent as Sioux Falls, Southern Illinois, Eastern Michigan, Fresno State, Indiana, and Washington. He has lived in smaller-caliber gigs and thrived there.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: No experience in the northeast. That's the only blemish.
• Plausibility: Low...but not zero. There are murmurs that DeBoer and Alabama aren't a match made in heaven.
• Rob's Excitement Level: Extreme

6. Marcus Freeman (Notre Dame head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Freeman has succeeded at Notre Dame and is highly desired by NFL and elite college programs alike. Freeman grew up in Ohio, played at Ohio State, and has coached at Ohio State, Kent State, Purdue, and Cincinnati; his whole career has been spent in quality Penn State recruiting territory. Surely he'd recruit linebackers at an elite level.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: He's a poor match with Knowles. There will be concerns about him jumping to the NFL or to Ohio State if that job comes open.
• Plausibility: Long shot
• Rob's Excitement Level: Extreme

5. Mike Elko (Texas A&M head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Elko is absolutely killing it. He's from New Jersey. He played at Penn. He spent much of his career in the northeast. He has succeeded at Duke and at Texas A&M. A&M figures to win at least 11 regular season games this year. Wow.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: A&M has oil money. Elko would want to put his stamp on the Penn State defense, too...but at this point, who cares? You let him do it.
• Plausibility: Long shot
• Rob's Excitement Level: Very high

4. Curt Cignetti (Indiana head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: If you've paid any attention in the past couple of years, this is obvious. Cignetti is 19-2 at Indiana. He's from Pittsburgh. He has coached all over the place. He's 138-37 as a head coach, which is good...but when we update that to 71-11 between James Madison and Indiana, it gets considerably more impressive. He played quarterback at West Virginia and his offenses have been unbelievably successful.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Cignetti signed an eight-year extension at $11.6M per year this month. He's got a great thing going at Indiana. He won't leave Indiana unless he doesn't think he can WIN there...and the Hoosiers are ranked #2. He's also old (64), but that doesn't matter if he can win for a decade.
• Plausibility: Extremely unlikely, especially after his second extension
• Rob's Excitement Level: Tippy top of the list

3. Brian Hartline (Ohio State offensive coordinator)

• Why He Makes Sense: Hartline is a unicorn. He only has three years of offensive coordinator experience...but it's really only this year as he shared the co-OC designation with Chip Kelly previously. Hartline has only ever coached at Ohio State. But my God, the wide receiver production has been absurd. The Ohio State offense has continued to roll with Hartline taking over and the ability to attract elite WR talent might be the single biggest gap for Penn State's next coaching staff to fill. Hartline is from Ohio, too.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Every other reason? Hartline hasn't been a head coach. He hasn't coached in the NFL. He has really only been a co-coordinator before this year. He is exclusively associated with a rival school. If the Ohio State job comes open, surely he'd take it in a heartbeat.
• Plausibility: Honestly, I don't know but I lean toward more unlikely than likely given Hartline's OSU connections
• Rob's Excitement Level: Very high

2. Dan Mullen (UNLV head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: I haven't heard a peep about Mullen, but I don't know why. He checks a lot of boxes. He was born in southeast Pennsylvania, grew up in New Hampshire, and came back to Pennsylvania to play college football. Then, he hopped aboard the Urban Meyer coaching train and following Meyer from Bowling Green to Utah to Florida before taking the head coaching job at Mississippi State. Mullen had seven winning seasons in nine years at Mississippi State, an incredible performance, before he left to take the Florida job. Perception is that Mullen struggled at Florida; perception is dumb. Mullen's teams finished ranked 7th, 6th, and 13th in his first three years; he was fired after going 5-6 in year four. Since Mullen left, Florida has three losing seasons and a high-water mark of 8-5 in 2024. Mullen now has UNLV on track for a double-digit victory season at a school that had one winning season from 2001-22. Very impressive stuff. Mullen has exclusively coached quarterbacks and wide receivers. Some of his quarterbacks: Alex Smith, Tim Tebow, Dak Prescott, and Kyle Trask. Wow.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Maybe things got weird at Florida? Maybe Mullen doesn't want to come back to the northeast? Maybe he really enjoys being a big fish in a small pond in the Mountain West? I don't know. Mullen just makes sense.
• Plausibility: Extremely high
• Rob's Excitement Level: Pretty high

1. Jedd Fisch (Washington head coach)

• Why He Makes Sense: Fisch is very similar to his predecessor at Washington. Like DeBoer, Fisch has won all over the place. He's from New Jersey. He has always been an offensive coach, working with quarterbacks and wide receivers. He has coached in the NFL at numerous stops, in college at numerous stops, in the northeast, the midwest, the southeast, and the west coast. He has been on staffs with Steve Spurrier, Pete Carroll, Jim Harbaugh, and Sean McVay. He took Arizona from one win to 10 wins in two years; Arizona! He has Washington looking very strong. And at just 49, he has plenty of runway left. Eagles GM Howie Roseman was his college roommate.
• Why He Doesn't Make Sense: Honestly, I can't think of a reason. He's already making $7.75M at Washington, but Penn State surely has the financial resources to top that in a meaningful way.
• Plausibility: Very high
• Rob's Excitement Level: Extreme

There we have it. So many options. I'm going to hold out hope for one of the top three.

Thoughts on the End of James Franklin's Tenure at Penn State

When the Chicago Bears fired Lovie Smith following a 10-6, non-playoff season in 2012, I was ready for the Bears to try something different. Smith's players always loved him and always played hard, but Smith was entirely unable to find even a league-average offense during his tenure. After nine years, it was time. Of course, the 12 seasons that followed were...underwhelming. Marc Trestman got off to a good start before imploding; he lasted just two season. John Fox apparently retired by taking the Bears job; he muddled through three crummy years. Matt Nagy got off to a scorching hot start in 2018 after GM Ryan Poles mortgaged the 2020s for that roster, but one missed field goal (preceded by many other missed field goals and extra points) torpedoed his tenure. Then Matt Eberflus happened. Yuck. Thankfully, Ben Johnson is here to save the day. The Bears wandered in the coaching wilderness for 12 years after Smith left. But it was still the right move. Smith's tenure had run its course and it was time to try someone new, risk be damned.

The firing of James Franklin has some similarities. Franklin spent 11.5 years at the helm in State College and oversaw a slew of elite defenses with some reasonably strong offenses. We'll go through Franklin's tenure in much more detail below, but suffice it to say, his five top-10 finishes are nothing to sneeze at! Unfortunately, Franklin built his reputation as a coach who consistently handled teams with lesser talent but couldn't beat peers or more talented squads. That approach will get a coach a lot of runway. Lovie Smith avoided bottoming out with the Bears...but he also proved unable to push the Bears over the top. At some point, a team needs to try something new.

Unlike Lovie Smith, Franklin bottomed out. True, Penn State is only 3-3, which is a mediocre record on its face. But things look much worse with just a bit of investigation. Penn State struggled to put away Nevada, FIU, and Villanova, then infamously mustered just 109 yards and three points through three quarters against Oregon. Still, Franklin was in fine shape...until losing outright as a 25.5-point favorite at UCLA and as a 21-point favorite at home to Northwestern. It's going to get worse. Penn State's problems -- subpar DT and LB play combined with a non-functioning passing offense -- will be exploited by the more talented opponents on their roster in the coming weeks. If interim coach Terry Smith can get the team to six wins, it will be a tremendous accomplishment. This is the reality that got Franklin fired.

Franklin politicked for years to get his preferred "alignment" with a university president and athletic director. He got it in Neeli Bendapudi and Pat Kraft. Franklin asked for increased financial investment. He got it, primarily in the form of his hand-picked coordinators in Andy Kotelnicki and Jim Knowles. And the results? Disastrous.

Add it all up and it was time for Franklin to go. He put his eggs into the 2025 basket and then failed spectacularly. Kudos to Kraft and the athletic department for deciding to eat the $50M left on Franklin's deal in an effort to reorient the ship.

The Penn State Football Paradigm Has Shifted

The first two years of the James Franklin era at Penn State were rough. The Nittany Lions, mired in the post-Sandusky sanctions that stunted the program's roster, shuffled through a couple of years of wildly unimpressive 7-6 records. The wins in 2014? UCF, Akron, Rutgers, UMass, Indiana, Temple, and Boston College. Four of those were one-score wins. The wins in 2015? Buffalo, Rutgers, San Diego State, Army, Indiana, Maryland, and Illinois. Just two of those were one-score wins, so that was improvement I guess? None of that matters. After a rough September in 2016, everything changed. Penn State showed the ability to play with the big boys in 2016 and, most notably, immediately stopped losing to mediocre teams. For a team that lost to Temple and Northwestern in 2015 after losing to Northwestern, Maryland, and Illinois in 2014, Penn State ceased succumbing to scrubs. To wit:

From 2016 through yesterday and excluding the 2020 season (which I always exclude because what in the world was 2020?), Penn State's record is 86-26. Of those 26 losses, only four have come to teams that managed only single-digit wins:

• 2016 Pitt went 8-5. Nittany lost 42-39 in Pittsburgh. 2016 Pitt played a brutal schedule and also took down 14-1 national champion Clemson.
• 2018 Michigan State went 7-6. That 21-17 loss was a terrible loss.
• 2021 Illinois went 5-7. Do I need to delve into the 9OT loss? Sean Clifford, clearly injured still following his exit from the Iowa game the week before, played his worst game. Illinois QB Art Sitkowski threw for 38 yards in the win.
• 2021 Arkansas went 9-4. I'm not sure what to do with bowl games littered with opt-outs.

So, to be clear, 22 of those 26 losses came to teams with 10+ wins. As of this morning, Penn State hadn't lost to a team that ended the year with fewer than 11 wins since 2021 Arkansas.

Over Franklin's tenure, some teams have moved into the elite tier. After largely living in the same tier as Penn State for decades, Kirby Smart arrived and moved Georgia into the tippy top. Oregon was great a decade ago, then wandered in the wilderness before Dan Lanning showed up and reestablished the championship pedigree. Other teams have moved into the elite tier and then back out of it. Here's looking at you, Clemson and Michigan.

Franklin never took that step into the elite tier. His now infamous "great to elite" speech following the second straight one-point loss to Ohio State in 2018 has proved prescient in unintended ways. Still, in an effort to get over the hump, Franklin has facilitated the employment of:

• A football-friendly university president (Neeli Bendapudi)
• A football-focused athletic director (Pat Kraft)
• A rising-star offensive coordinator with a top-dollar contract (Andy Kotelnicki)
• The highest-paid defensive coordinator in the country (Jim Knowles)

Penn State was, arguably, doing everything it took to get on the path to elite production. But even if that didn't work, the floor was insanely high.

Until today. Everything changed today.

We start with Knowles. After handling the overmatched preseason opposition, the PSU defense held Oregon to relative meager production in the first half, allowing just three points. And then...

• Oregon: 10 plays, 80 yards, TD
• Oregon: 10 plays, 75 yards, TD
• Oregon: 6 plays, 7 yards, punt
• Oregon: 7 plays, 25 yards, TD
• Oregon: 1 play, 25 yards, TD
• UCLA: 11 plays, 75 yards, TD
• UCLA: 7 plays, 40 yards, FG
• UCLA: 17 plays, 75 yards, TD
• UCLA: 6 plays, 68 yards, TD
• UCLA: 3 plays, 17 yards, FG (stopped by clock)
• UCLA: 6 plays, 8 yards, punt
• UCLA: 8 plays, 75 yards, TD

Ummm, wut? Over those 12 possessions (excluding Oregon's end-of-half kneel down), that's eight TDs, two FGs, and two punts. Unforgiveable. That's unacceptable for an Arena League defense. Sure, Knowles had to deal with the loss of athletic LB Tony Rojas this week, but he's supposed to be the top defensive mind in the country. Surely he can survive against UCLA without one LB. But no. Knowles was either unwilling to play a spy against UCLA QB Nico Iamaleava or, when he did play a spy, failed to have a player ready to go with sufficient athleticism to hang with Nico. Dani Dennis-Sutton was spying on the last UCLA TD which, well, isn't going to work.

When Sean Clifford got hurt at Iowa in 2021, it cratered the season because Ta'Quan Roberson was completely incapable of operating the offense. Clifford played hurt, the offense scuffled, and the season went off the rails. Surely the 2025 defense isn't unworkable now with Rojas out...right? Much like Jan Johnson before him, Dom DeLuca tries hard, but he's wildly overmatched athletically and completely abandoned his zone responsibilities on multiple occasions today, creating massive running lanes for Iamaleava. There must be another option, not like it matters at this point.

Obviously it's unfair to put everything on Knowles, even with how poorly his defense has performed lately. There's plenty of blame for Kotelnick's offense. It starts with the coach. Why...in the world...is Nick Singleton...playing so much over Kaytron Allen? Singleton was playing great at the end of the 2024 season. Allen has wildly outplayed his backfield buddy this year. Singleton continues to get the majority of the touches. It's just bizarre.

Beyond the RBs, Drew Allar continues to to underwhelm. Some of that is unfair to Allar; Kotelnicki wants Allar to be Beau Pribula or Trace McSorley and he isn't. Allar's numbers look fine enough today at the end of the game. But much like last week against the Ducks, Allar and his offense struggled early. After a 75-yard touchdown drive, the offense sputtered to a three-and-punt and followed with a turnover on downs, giving the ball back to UCLA to push the halftime lead to 20. I won't blame Allar for the next drive...

That "honor" goes to Luke Reynolds. There was always going to be a drop off from Tyler Warren to whoever took over his job; that was inevitable. Unfortunately, the guy tasked with the primary responsibility there, Reynolds has been terrible. Reynolds has been missing blocks all over the place to kill running plays and has dropped a few catchable throws through five games. But he hit a new low point, handing the ball back to the Bruins on the second snap of the second half with a fumble, too.

So where does Penn State go from here?

Honestly, bowl eligibility is now the concern for me. Oh boy. The energy form the Penn State sideline was non-existent throughout the game, even as the season slipped away. Both coordinators seem intent on pretending that objective reality isn't the case. Knowles wants to play with a six-man box even though his DL can't generate pressure and his LBs now lack athleticism to operate with all of the space they need to cover. Kotelnicki pretends that his QB is mobile, and while Allar tries to run when necessary, it isn't pretty or explosive.

I thought Penn State needed to beat Oregon last week, even though I didn't think they'd win. Everything came together on paper in advance of that game. Oregon had to travel across the country. Penn State got a night Whiteout. Penn State featured their best roster in many years. And yet, Nittany still found a way to lose.

I figured that they'd suffer their normal post-1st-loss hangover this week. Franklin has done that many times, but (i) UCLA is terrible, (ii) this Penn State team was supposed to be better, and (iii) in the 12-team Playoff era, everything was still in front of this squad. And it didn't matter. The hangover lasted into the 2nd half.

Is there a world where Penn State runs the table and heads into the Playoff at 10-2? I mean, yeah, sure, I guess. But it's much more likely that we live in a world where this Penn State team completely unravels and misses a bowl game than it is that we live in that 10-2 world.

Today is a gut punch on the level of the 2017 Michigan State loss that killed Nittany's path to the Playoff ...but 2017 MSU was very good! 2025 UCLA is not. Losing to a bad team has the chance to torpedo this season, spilling over into recruiting losses. Honestly, it's hard to imagine that not being the case at this point.