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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — James Franklin is out at Penn State.
The school fired the longtime head coach on Sunday, less than 24 hours after a all but ended whatever remote chance the had of reaching the College Football Playoff.
Terry Smith will serve as the interim head coach for the rest of the season for the Nittany Lions (3-3, 0-3 Big Ten), who began the year with hopes of winning the national title only to have those hopes evaporate by early October with each one more stinging than the last.
Penn State, which reached the CFP semifinals 10 months ago, in late September. A followed. The final straw came on Saturday at Beaver Stadium, where the Nittany Lions let Northwestern escape with a victory and to injury for the rest of the season.
Franklin went 104-45 during his 11-plus seasons at Penn State. Yet the Nittany Lions often stumbled against top-tier opponents, going 4-21 against teams ranked in the top 10 during his tenure.
Hired in 2014 in the wake of Bill O’Brien’s departure for the NFL, Franklin inherited a team still feeling the effects of unprecedented NCAA sanctions in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
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Armed with relentless optimism and an ability to recruit, Franklin’s program regularly churned out NFL-level talent, from Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley to Green Bay Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons. Franklin guided the Nittany Lions to the 2016 Big Ten title and a seemingly permanent spot in the rankings.
There was hope this fall might be the one when Penn State would finally break through and win its third national championship and first since 1986. Yet after three easy wins during a light nonconference schedule, the Nittany Lions crumbled.
Athletic director Pat Kraft said the school owes Franklin — who is due nearly $50 million in a buyout — an “enormous amount of gratitude” for leading the Nittany Lions back to relevance but felt it was time to make a change.
“We hold our athletics programs to the highest of standards, and we believe this is the right moment for new leadership at the helm of our football program to advance us toward Big Ten and national championships,” Kraft said.
Smith now will be tasked with trying to stop the bleeding on what has become a disastrous season. He will have his work cut out for him: Penn State’s next three games are at Iowa on Saturday, at No. 1 Ohio State on Nov. 1 and home against No. 3 Indiana on Nov. 8.
The matchups with the Buckeyes and Hoosiers were expected to be a chance for the Nittany Lions to bolster their CFP credentials. In the span of a handful of weeks, Penn State will instead find itself in the role of spoiler.
The move will cost Penn State at a time the athletic department has committed to a $700 million renovation to Beaver Stadium. The project is expected to be completed by 2027.
Former athletic director Sandy Barbour signed Franklin to a 10-year contract extension worth up to $85 million in 2021. According to terms of the deal, Penn State will have to pay Franklin’s base salary of $500,000, supplemental pay of $6.5 million and insurance loan of $1 million until 2031.
It’s a steep price, but one the university appears willing to pay to find a coach who can complete the climb to a national title.
“We have the best college football fans in America, a rich tradition of excellence, significant investments in our program, compete in the best conference in college sports and have a state-of-the-art renovated stadium on the horizon,” Kraft said. “I am confident in our future and in our ability to attract elite candidates to lead our program.”
There will be no shortage of interested coaches. Kraft has ties to at least one. He was the athletic director at Temple when he hired current Nebraska coach Matt Rhule back in 2013.
Rhule and the Cornhuskers will visit Beaver Stadium in Penn State’s home finale on Nov. 22. What back in August looked like one of the final hurdles for the Nittany Lions to clear on their way to a CFP berth might instead be both an audition for Rhule and a chance for the Nittany Lions to potentially salvage a shot at a bowl game of any variety, let alone a premier one.
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AP National Writer Will Graves in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
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