(OT) Penn State Football - James Franklin no longer

[zambonir]

Nope.

Also, oops

[flyers19rw]

Teenagers are immensely fickle. These commitments are only real when the player enrolls and then stays. Check Bear Alexander’s trail to Oregon or for that fact Justin Field’s history including once to Penn State. Let’s just wait to see what happens when the coach is named.
There is an open rumor circulating about Terry Smith being named the General Manager for the football program. He’ll be taken care of.

[zambonir]

I only posted that because of the GIANT error in the article, not because of anything else it said. Might have been AI.

Agree Smith is not going anywhere. He may not actually want to be GM, but it definitely pays better than assistant coach.

But the damage is already done for recruiting. If they hire someone before the conference championships the new coach and and remaining staff will scramble to put a small class together, and will also be able to flip some guys (including guys from wherever he was). But, most players in the country will in fact be enrolled before the February signing date. It will be a portal-heavy season, with several dozen players leaving and more coming back in.

Logic still says they will hire the best guy they can get who is actually available on December 1. But if the guy you want is not, you just live with the short-term limitation to get him long-term.

[flyers19rw]

Sorry but I just don’t see it that way. If a major hire is done by State, and it will be that, the new coach will be able to draw in the same type of quality players that State was after before Franklin was canned. If State and whoever can’t out recruit Va Tech and Franklin there’s more wrong with the program than anyone imagined. Franklin has had generational talent in Happy Valley and has never been able to win big games which is what the players want to do. State will be more than fine in the future.

[zambonir]

I am not saying they can't recruit well going forward, but it's not going to be possible to recruit the class of '26 normally if they don't have a coach in place by November 30. Most of the players who sign between December 3-5 (including the Franklin recruits who don't recommit) will be enrolled in January. Guys who don't sign (including Franklin recruits who haven't gone to him or somewhere else) will still be in play, but that also requires the new coach and the NIL operation to be humming along for all of December, and the other schools have $ too.

The new coach will bring in tons of his own recruits of course. And transfer portal is a whole other story. I think they are better off hiring one of the medium-sized names (as Franklin was) who already knows how to coach a college program (I.e. not Daboll) and can bring 40 players with him (which is how Cignetti did it).

Typing that, I reckon Pat Fitzgerald is out. He needs to get a Group of 5 job first anyway probably, but he wouldn't bring anything to the table in terms of existing recruits/transfers, and he's also been out of the game for this entire NIL/revenue-share era.

[bigegypt0417]

Penn State will be fine when they name their next head coach...it will be a big name and it will probably bring the same quality players in to the program and if it's the right coach, it might even improve their recruiting.

If it take longer, the 2026 class will be a lost class....in terms of who they had ready to sign. No player is going to sign without knowing who it is that will be coaching them.

They'll end up counting on the portal and maybe bringing some recruits from the former school.

Unless they name a coach or there is an idea who the coach is before signing day.

[zambonir]

The good news is there's already 10 other schools without a coach. A lot of recruiting classes in flux. The bad news is it seems like nearly everyone PSU might be considering is either in the playoff mix (including Brent Key) or being pursued by multiple schools, with more openings still to come. Possibly still a few more contract extensions taking guys off the market to come too.

[bigegypt0417]

Last nights game was fun to watch....a dominant win against a good team.

The kids really have rallied around Terry Smith...not sure that will move the needle but it was fun to watch.

[phillychuck]

Sure didn’t look like a good Nebraska team, maybe we just played that well...defense was certainly much better than it has been during the losing streak. Or maybe it was their young QB. And I like Smith’s philosophy of giving it to 13 and 10 tons of times every game. Should have tried that for the last two years, at least more than we did.

[zambonir]

There's really no reason why Terry Smith can't run a program just as well as any of these other mid-level candidates, even if he hasn't moved through the ranks in quite the same way. Maybe not a name brand to national recruits, but he is already crucial to recruiting, and knows every HS coach. If there is a lot of internal support for him (at the Trustees level) that could be a big deal too.

Meanwhile Brent Key lost a game he shouldn't have (and to Pitt!), Jeff Brohm got blown out by SMU (and isn't really a candidate apparently) and Eli Drinkwitz lost the kind of game Franklin always did (to Oklahoma). Imagine if Rhule was still a candidate.

Reports that Bobby Engram is getting an interview.

It's so easy to get this kind of thing wrong even if you pick the seemingly right guy (Texas and Charlie Strong/Tom Herman, Michigan and Rich Rodriguez/Brady Hoke, Florida with everyone and arguably Florida State too). There are also examples of the interim coach working out great - Dabo Swinney, Ed Orgeron (for a while), Ryan Day. Brent Key. Dabo and Key had never been a coordinator either.

[zambonir]

Hardly definitive but this predicts PSU will make its hire by the end of the month, which probably rules DeBoer out. The other x factor is Kiffin (since Drinkwitz and Key would both be candidates to replace him) who is also supposed to decide by next weekend.

Who's Hot, Who's Not in the Penn State Coaching Search

[phillychuck]

If Smith can recruit (and insiders say he is an elite recruiter), I’m pretty impressed by how he has brought the offense along under a red-shirt freshman QB. Grunkemeyer was only a 3-star recruit, but was ranked highly in that year’s QB recruiting class (as high as #5 by ESPN). I like Smith as much as anyone who is still available. Players and coaches seem to love him.

As z wrote above, “ There are also examples of the interim coach working out great - Dabo Swinney, Ed Orgeron (for a while), Ryan Day. Brent Key. Dabo and Key had never been a coordinator either.”

Finally, I like how Smith seems comfortable with the spotlight not being on him--Franklin always seemed to want to be the center of attention. And his PSU roots are deep!

[zambonir]

Surely PSU's oft-maligned OC gets some of the credit too. Maybe even more of it, if Smith (who is technically a defensive coach despite being a former offensive player) has given him more rein than Franklin. And Grunkemeyer's also pretty good, there was always an argument for just letting the program move forward this year, he would have challenged Pribula for the job.

Smith can definitely recruit in the most traditional sense because he helped recruit this team. (So that means he also can't get wide receivers, ha). But I'm not sure it matters anymore. Nobody's closing these deals in Mom's living room, they are closing them with the check.

[phillychuck]

Yes, Kotelnicki gets lots of credit for the offense, too. I think Smith gets some credit for the philosophy change (“give the ball to 10 and 13, period”), but Kotelnicki had to implement it. Kotelnicki also gets some of the blame for how bad the Allar-led offense was early in the year, but Franklin probably hogtied him.

[phillychuck]

An aside...if we beat Rutgerts and get bowl-eligible, I’d love to see Pitt vs PSU somewhere just for old times sake!

[zambonir]

At the end of the day it's all about money. Smith has won over the players and a lot of his fellow lettermen. A few of the latter are on the Board of Trustees and involved in NIL, though not necessarily all on the same page. But between NIL and increased Nittany Lion Club donation requirements and all those expensive new things they have to sell in the new stadium (in addition to the overall renovation cost), the new coach has to inspire people to fork over the dough. Franklin was pretty good at that side of the job (at the expense of the game day part, arguably). Arguably, since they have missed out on the biggest brand names, Smith probably checks that box just as well as the other apparently remaining candidates.

PSU has already announced no ticket price increase for next year (duh). That won't be the case in '27 especially since that's when the stadium will be finished.

[zambonir]

I believe that was actually one of the Pinstripe Bowl projections, though Pitt may yet do better.

[zambonir]

Another perspective.

Even if you disagree, this remains a real thing that lingers within PSU.

This has been a ruthless and also cynical campaign by Terry Smith. Putting on the Paterno pin to get the most deranged people in the community on your side. Getting the players behind you so you can claim to be the guy who keeps the roster together. He's fighting! 247sports.com/college/penn...

[image or embed]

— Alex Kirshner ( @alexkirshner.com ) November 23, 2025 at 2:12 PM

[bigegypt0417]

Feels like pulling that pin out of your bag hurts with the university more than it helps?

[zambonir]

Depends where the balance of power is. Those people never really liked Franklin, this was just the first time he'd lost his leverage. It's hard to imagine Kraft is actually listening to that segment of the board, which seems to care more about that one issue than what's best for PSU. But then again Rhule is Kraft's best friend, Smith coached under Rhule when they were all at Temple, and when they talk about Smith having support from "the lettermen" they aren't talking about people who played for Franklin or Bill O'Brien.