James Franklin and the Penn State football program suffered another painful loss on Saturday, continuing an increasingly worrisome trend for the Nittany Lions' coach.
Following the 30-24 double-overtime home loss to Oregon, fans and critics alike seized on Franklin, who has long held a reputation for coming up short in big games. But Franklin, as one might expect, is pushing back against that narrative.
“I’m not going to allow one loss to define our season, and I’m not going to allow a few losses to define my career and what we have done here at Penn State,” Franklin said, via 247 Sports' Daniel Gallen.
Whether Penn State should move on from Franklin in the near future is up for debate, and many people are certainly having it, but there is no denying, though, that Franklin's Nittany Lions have woefully underperformed when the lights were brightest.
Although Penn State entered Saturday's top-10 showdown with Oregon having won each of its last six ‘White Out' games at Beaver Stadium, dating back to 2019, Franklin's record against top-10 opponents is now 4-21, including 2-19 against Big Ten foes ranked inside the top 10.
The numbers, as well as the pain of losing many of these games, primarily to Ohio State and Michigan, have led some to believe Penn State would be better off without Franklin. In his 12th season in Happy Valley, Franklin signed a 10-year contract extension in 2021 that runs through the end of the decade. If fired, his buyout is estimated to be worth more than $50 million.
Penn State would seem, on paper, to be an unlikely school to fire Franklin despite his shortcomings. Over the last 75 years, the Nittany Lions have had four full-time head coaches — Rip Engle, Joe Paterno, Bill O'Brien, and Franklin — and with his next win, No. 105, Franklin will officially pass Engle as the second-most-winningest coach in program history, only behind the all-time mark of 409 set by Paterno.
That win should come on Saturday, when Penn State visits Pasadena to play UCLA, which is 0-4 and fired its head coach two weeks ago.
