(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.