James Franklin said he was initially “in shock” over his recent dismissal from Penn State and said the move “feels surreal” during an appearance on ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Saturday. The comments were his first public statements since he was fired as head coach of the Nittany Lions.
Franklin’s season with Penn State began with national championship aspirations, but unraveled in a hurry after the team’s last three losses. Franklin said on the “GameDay” broadcast that athletic director Pat Kraft informed him of the move after a practice last Sunday afternoon, the day after Penn State lost 22-21 to Northwestern.
“I was in shock, obviously,” Franklin said. “I took the next 15 minutes to let my kids know so they wouldn’t find out on the internet. Then walked down and had a super emotional meeting with the team to tell them I was leaving. That was it — it was that quick — pretty much in shock as that was going on.”
Franklin also explained that, while the decision was hard to comprehend at the time, he preferred to focus on the memories he made at Penn State, while his concern remained with the players who would have to continue without him.
“The hardest part,” Franklin said, “is walking away from all those young men in that locker room, the recruits that were committed to us, a lot of tough conversations. So that’s the challenge. It’s the people, at the end of the day — the coaches, the staffs, their families, the kids. What I don’t think people realize is how many people this affects. A ton of people. That’s where my heart breaks.”
“We’re just going to go win the national championship somewhere else now.”
The goal hasn’t changed for James Franklin 👀 pic.twitter.com/RUzsBPDK4y
— ESPN (@espn) October 18, 2025
The heartbreak started at home. Franklin said that his two daughters were young children when he became head coach at Penn State in 2014, and they grew up in the town. He said his youngest daughter, now a high-school senior, expected to attend Penn State, but “obviously, the plans have changed.”
For Penn State, Franklin’s firing capped one of the most stunning 15-day stretches in college football history, which saw the Nittany Lions lose three consecutive games to Oregon, UCLA and Northwestern.
Although Franklin’s record was notoriously bad versus top teams — 4-21 against top-10 teams, with an even worse 1-18 mark against conference opponents in the top 10 — he has been known as a coach who wins the games he’s supposed to. Penn State’s Week 5 loss to then-No. 6 Oregon in double overtime wasn’t expected to keep the Nittany Lions out of the College Football Playoff.
However, everything came to a head with consecutive losses to the Bruins and Wildcats. The Nittany Lions entered both games as three-touchdown favorites, and UCLA’s victory over Penn State was the program’s first of the season.
Against Northwestern, the Nittany Lions lost not only their head coach but also their starting quarterback. Drew Allar sustained a season-ending injury (a broken left ankle) in the same game. Franklin addressed the situation with Allar from the “GameDay” set in Athens, Ga. Meanwhile, Penn State (3-3) is set to face Iowa (4-2) on Saturday night in Iowa City.
“I just got a message from Drew Allar’s dad that he’s sitting home as well,” Franklin said. “We both should be in Iowa. It’s what we’re used to doing and how we operate.”
When asked how he got here, Franklin said, “I can’t answer that. To be honest with you, I’m still working through it myself. It feels surreal.”
For Penn State to fire Franklin so swiftly — and absorb the burden of buying out his roughly $45 million contract — shows how dramatically this year’s squad unraveled and how serious the program is about competing for championships.
Franklin took the Nittany Lions to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff just a season ago. After 11 seasons in State College, this year appeared to be the program’s best chance to get over the hump and win its first national title since 1986. Franklin’s final record at Penn State was 104-45, with a 65-37 record in the Big Ten. Only Joe Paterno (409) has more wins in State College. Franklin was the 2016 Big Ten Coach of the Year and won the conference championship that season.
Legendary Alabama coach Nick Saban expressed displeasure with Franklin’s firing, suggesting that the coach deserved better after all the success he had.
“It’s not up to you to decide what’s fair or unfair,” Saban told Franklin on “GameDay”. Then, he added, “I’m going to answer it. It’s unfair as hell for you to go to the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, get into the Final Four, come out being ranked No. 1 this year, an expectation that you created by what you accomplished at Penn State, and for those people not to show enough appreciation for that and gratitude for all the hard work that you did. I’m saying it’s unfair.”
Associate head coach and cornerbacks coach Terry Smith is now the team’s interim head coach.
As far as the next steps for Franklin, a man who’s been in football for 30 years, he expressed a desire to get “back to doing what we do,” and the next challenge.
“It’s been a ton of players reaching out, talking to their parents, telling them to take a deep breath, everything’s going to be fine,” Franklin said. “Then the same thing with recruits. It’s been a lot. … For me, I got in this business to help people and most importantly, young men, and I’m going to continue to do that.”
He also said: “We’re just going to go win the national championship somewhere else now.”
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