Change My Mind: It’s Time For Penn State To Move On From James Franklin

Today’s Argument: As the title says; the James Franklin era at Penn State needs to be over.

Maybe it’s because Punxsutawney Phil is just down the road from the campus, but Penn State football is stuck on Groundhog Day…and it’s only December.

I can’t be the only Penn State fan who woke up this morning feeling that way. For me, it’s all about looking at the common threads from the seasons in the James Franklin era.

  • 10-win season
  • “Signature” wins at Iowa and/or Wisconsin
  • Try to lose to Illinois and/or Northwestern
  • Bad loss as home (Illinois for Homecoming wasn’t that long ago.)
  • Losses to both Michigan and Ohio State
  • Win a crap bowl game or lose a good one (like last night)
  • Over-rated

How many of those things apply to 2023? How many of those things apply to any season since James Franklin came to State College in 2014? How many of those things happen in multiple years during the James Franklin era? Is it any wonder all those years have run together for me?

Frankly, I think it’s time for James Franklin to stop being the thing that keeps happening. Don’t get me wrong; I think Franklin is a damn fine football coach. Anybody who can get Vanderbilt on the map can’t be bad.

But he’s done his job; it’s time to thank him for what he’s done…and move on.

In the immediate aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky mess, Bill O’Brien nearly walked on the Nittany River by saving the Nittany Lions from decades of being Homecoming dates to the Northwesterns of the world. Then Franklin lit the rocket for Stage Two; he restored recruiting and returned Penn State to being a perennial Top 10 program. He’s just not the guy to get the program over “the hump.”

Again, that’s not a knock on him. Just like the Apollo missions to the Moon required three astronauts, Penn State clearly needs three coaches to complete the “one giant leap” on to a Big Ten Big Eighteen and/or National Championship.

Bill O’Brien literally built the launch pad by keeping that team respectable in a time where there were drastic scholarship restrictions and a pre-transfer portal “Get Out Of Jail Free” ticket to anywhere a player wanted. James Franklin got Penn State to the moon, but the mission doesn’t have the oxygen for many more lunar orbits without a landing.

As fans and alum. that’s the decision we need to make. When we say WE ARE PENN STATE, does that mean we are content merely to orbit the ultimate; getting close enough for views of it most would envy? I say SCREW THAT! Thanks to James Franklin WE ARE close enough to go get our own moon-pail full of championship glory.

I may be meandering a bit, but the point here is best illustrated by those missions to the Moon. The fact that the guy who can pilot you across a quarter-million miles of nothing to arrive at precisely the right place at precisely the right time has a different skill set than the guy who can avoid boulders the size of Pittsburgh to land a rocket-speeding lunar beer can on a cosmic kitty-litter box without even kicking up a dust ball means nothing…because you need both of them.

In the Apollo days, the entire pool of those selected to be astronauts came from the ranks of pilots expressly for that difference. After all, the guy who can stick a fighter on a moving ship and the guy entrusted with 500 lives on a Jumbo Jet are both pretty damn good pilots.

The difference is every organization hiring pilots from the discount airline that puts more monetary value on your lost luggage than your life up to NASA in it’s heyday had at least the opportunity to do whatever they might consider to be exhaustive testing as part of their candidate selection process. On the other hand, hiring for every coaching job anywhere in the sporting universe is all about hoping you picked the right person and a having a big belief in on-the-job-training.

Luckily for football fans, our world contains a massive exception. There is that rarity when the world contains somebody with recent “moon-landing experience” and whose phone isn’t ringing. As all you Penn Staters read this, consider the fact there’s a guy out there with a recent National Championship who has a reputation for being an excellent recruiter…and…there’s no big buy-out on an existing contract.

In other words, it’s time for Penn State to give Ed Orgeron a call; the worst he can do is say no. It can’t cost much to buy a guy out of a defensive line coaching job, and even so, when the New Orleans Saints firs Dennis Allen in about ten days, “Coach O” likely gets the gate as well.

LET’S LAND THIS MUFAWWWWWWWW!!! GO LIONS!!!

Think about it. “Coach O” knows how to land the beer can; he did it 2019…another season in which James Franklin turned State College into Punxsutawney. It’s worth at shot; Orgeron is tanned. rested, and ready. Not to mention, it would be easier to swallow five pounds of Cajun-flavored Scrapple rather than one more James Franklin Groundhog Burger.

Doubt that?

Change my mind.

You can see more of my not-so-popular opinions here.

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