Just over 10 years ago, the James Franklin era began in Happy Valley as the former Vanderbilt head coach became the 16th head coach in Penn State football’s illustrious history. 

During Franklin’s introductory press conference, the Pennsylvania native didn’t shy away from his intentions to restore the Nittany Lions’ sanction-riddled image back into a prominent and proud brand. 

“We’re coming here with the mindset that we’re going to build this program,” Franklin said on January 11, 2014. “We’re going to build it the right way, and we’re going to build it for the long haul. We plan on being here for a very, very long time. This is my dream job. This is where I want to be.”

For any new hire, the “dream job” declaration often results in a self-imploding career death wish. But by navigating through scholarship reductions, initially unrealistic community expectations, limited administrational buy-in, and arguably the toughest in-conference division in college football, Franklin, on the surface, delivered on most of his initial promises. 

Despite eclipsing five seasons of 10 wins or more throughout the decade-long span, the public jury is still out on whether Franklin remains the right suitor to lift Penn State into true national title contention. 

The fragile debate between Penn State supporters is a crux unique to most perennial top-15 programs. For example, during Brian Kelly’s first 10 years at Notre Dame, the head coach led the Fighting Irish to five 10-win campaigns — the same clip as Franklin. 

Moreover, Kelly’s record throughout the span amounted to a 92-37 breakdown. Franklin’s equals 88-39. 

Notre Dame’s administration and fanbase rarely questioned Kelly’s leadership at the blue blood’s helm. At Penn State, the latter appears to constantly bash Franklin, despite coming to Happy Valley with a 75-man scholarship cap and a temporarily stained image. 

Following Bill O’Brien’s departure in favor of the NFL ranks after the 2013 go-around, the former Penn State head coach adamantly declared that years three and four post-sanctions would be the toughest to navigate to keep the program afloat long-term. 

On February 5, 2014, Franklin signed his first, and most important recruiting class, comprised of 25 players. Sixteen had verbally committed to O’Brien and the remaining commodities signed on to the new head coach’s mission as last-ditch additions. 

That year, Franklin’s depth chart consisted of 11 freshmen entrenched in first or second-team roles. Most notably, his squad nearly knocked off the eventual national champion in Ohio State behind a valiant double-overtime effort at Beaver Stadium. 

Still, Franklin won just two Big Ten matchups, Rutgers and Indiana, during his first year in Happy Valley. Even with nine scholarship offensive linemen at his disposal, the mark proved to be a letdown after O’Brien went 10-6 overall in conference play. 

In 2015, the Nittany Lions regained five more scholarships, putting the program just five short of the typical 85-man full-ride allotment. In Franklin’s first full recruiting class, he inked 25 enrollees with 16 eventually morphing into multi-game starters. 

Aside from the group’s No. 14 ranking, a 10-spot improvement from 2014, Franklin’s most impressive win on the trail came in the form of an in-conference flip. On February 19, 2014, Saquon Barkley decommitted from Rutgers and pledged his verbal allegiance to Penn State, which stood firm until signing day. 

Barkley exploded for 1,076 yards behind 5.9 yards-per-carry as a true freshman. His backfield prowess proved to be generational, but he couldn’t fix other offensive deficiencies curated by offensive coordinator John Donovan’s attack. 

Franklin’s second year produced the Big Ten’s No. 11 scoring offense behind just over 23 points per outing, the second-worst total offense in the conference, and the No. 9 passing offense behind former five-star gunslinger Christian Hackenberg. 

While the Nittany Lions rattled off five-straight victories after a dismal 27-10 defeat at Lincoln Financial Field to Temple, Franklin still finished his subsequent campaign with a 4-4 conference record. 

With a 6-10 Big Ten record in two seasons, Franklin was forced to make his first tenure-defining staff alteration to keep his pulse of the program aligned with the expectations of Penn State’s rebuilding effort. As a result, he relieved Donovan of his playcalling duties after being on staff with Franklin since 2008 — dating back to stints at Maryland and Vanderbilt. 

Needing an innovative offensive breakthrough, Franklin hit an unorthodox home run in landing former Fordham head coach Joe Moorhead to run his offense. Moorhead’s name didn’t appear on any early replacement hot boards, but Franklin’s confidence in the up-and-coming offensive mind never wavered. 

“We completed an exhaustive search of many candidates and [Moorhead’s] name kept rising to the top,” Franklin said on December 12, 2015. “Many factors led to this decision. Joe’s makeup as a person and leader is outstanding…. He brings invaluable perspective to our staff as a former head coach. Most importantly, his offensive production as a coordinator and head coach speaks for itself.”

Moorhead implemented a high-octane spread attack into Franklin’s program. At Fordham, Moorhead took a 1-10 team into an FCS playoff mainstay behind a 38-13 overall record from 2012-15. Additionally, the Rams ranked second in team passing efficiency, ninth in scoring, and seventh in total offense among all FCS teams during his last year at the helm. 

“There are a lot of different manifestations of the spread offense, and people generalize what it means to run that type of offense,” Moorhead said about his offensive vision at Penn State. “I categorize us as a multi-tempo spread offense. The thing that makes us a little bit different is that we combine pass schemes that are derived from the West Coast system with an RPO (run-pass option)-based run game that utilizes the quarterback’s ability to beat you with his feet.”

The adoption of Moorhead’s balanced RPO scheme helped the Nittany Lions explode offensively. Despite beginning 2016 with a 2-2 record, defined by a crushing three-point road loss to Pitt and a 39-point drubbing at the hands of Michigan, Franklin finally received his big break in Happy Valley. 

After falling to the Wolverines on September 24, 2016, Franklin and Co. ripped off eight straight regular-season victories. The most meaningful win of the year, and arguably within Franklin’s tenure, came in the form of White Out triumph as 19.5-point underdogs against No. 2 Ohio State in late October. 

A week later, Penn State found itself ranked No. 24 in the AP Top 25 — its first appearance in the poll since January 2, 2012. Immediately following the win, Franklin understood the significance of his first true signature victory at the Nittany Lions’ helm. 

“This is for everybody,” Franklin said postgame. “This community has been through so much in the last five years, and this is a big step in the right direction in terms of healing. I said this very, very early on that for us to get where we wanted to be we need this entire community together and a win like tonight. I know I’m biased, but I believe that football has the ability to bring a community together like nothing else, so I want to thank everybody.”

The win catapulted Franklin to a Big Ten Championship triumph in just his third season commanding his resurgent group, largely due to an offense that finished No. 2 in the Big Ten in total yardage. Additionally, Penn State concluded the year ranked No. 5 in the final College Football Playoff Poll paired with its first Rose Bowl berth since 2009.

To date, Franklin’s conference championship and No. 5 regular-season finish stand as two of his top accolades in 10 years heading the Nittany Lions. In hindsight, the head coach’s rapid breakthrough in just his third year made managing expectations a more difficult task moving forward. 

“That was kind of the moment where people stopped talking about the challenges and the issues of the past, and it was like we had moved forward,” Franklin said to former Penn State tight end Adam Breneman last July. “I was extremely proud because taking the job, people were saying it was going to take 10 years for the program to ever resemble what it had looked like in the past. The fact we were able to do it in year three, I was really proud of that.”

A year later, Penn State found itself facing its highest preseason expectations since being ranked No. 3 in the AP’s initial 1999 poll. At the beginning of the 2017 campaign, Franklin’s squad entered the season at No. 6 in the same poll behind 17 returning starters. 

That season began the start of a common theme from years four to 10 under Franklin’s reign. Consistently, sky-high expectations result in shattered postseason hopes defined by big-game disappointment against top-10 counterparts. 

The Nittany Lions jumped out to a 21-3 lead over Ohio State in Columbus on October 28, 2017, only to fall to the No. 6 Buckeyes by one point. A week later, Penn State’s outside playoff and conference championship hopes crashed as nine-point favorites in a loss against unranked Michigan State. 

Penn State concluded the season ranked from start to finish for the first time since 2009 paired with a Fiesta Bowl victory over No. 12 Washington for the first of three New Year’s Six Bowl wins under Franklin. The success in year four under the head coach was undeniable, but with Moorhead’s departure in favor of the Mississippi State head role at the season’s end, its stability remained in question. 

Aside from the Nittany Lions’ COVID-19 hindered slate in 2020, the following six years under Franklin provided eerily similar storylines to the 2017 go-around. After failing to outlast No. 4 Ohio State at home in 2018, Franklin issued his famous “great to elite” decree postgame, advocating for his program to not accept complacency in its quest to climb the sport’s steep tier ladder. 

“As hard as we have worked to go from average to good, from good to great, the work that it’s going to take to get to an elite program is going to be just as hard as the ground and the distance that we’ve already traveled,” Franklin said following his team’s 27-26 defeat to the Buckeyes. “It’s going to be just as hard to get there. [We have to] scratch, and claw, and fight.”

The spirited sentiment appeared genuine to outsiders. If Penn State could’ve outscored Urban Meyer’s group by just a combined field goal over its previous two battles with Ohio State, the Nittany Lions would’ve likely taken a firm short-term stronghold across the Big Ten. 

Instead, the Franklin-led Nittany Lions dropped two additional matchups over their next four contests with losses to Michigan State and Michigan. Moreover, Franklin, who previously described Penn State as his “dream job” upon arrival, failed to debunk immediate interest in the pending USC head coaching vacancy at the same time.

On November 20, 2018, Franklin was issued a simple yes or no question by PennLive’s David Jones, who asked, “Will you be the head coach of Penn State [in 2019]?”

Sporting a disappointing 8-3 record after beginning the season ranked No. 10, Franklin answered the inquiry this way:

“Speculation is everywhere,” he said. “It’s that crazy time of the year. I’m focused on Maryland.”

From the outside, the non-commital reply from the head coach coupled with two years of consistent letdown performances turned plenty of Nittany Lions’ supporters away from the leader’s vision. 

But after nearly two more seasons of similar results, marked by two losses to the newly-altered Ryan Day-led Buckeyes, a deflating loss to Minnesota as the fourth-ranked team in the initial College Football Playoff rankings, and five-straight blunders to start the 2020 go-around, Franklin’s leverage-gaining tactics finally showed their worth. 

On November 23, 2021, former Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Sandy Barbour inked Franklin to a 10-year contract extension. The deal, which runs through the 2031 season, amounts to $7.5 million per year, incentive opportunities, and a $1 million annual life insurance loan. 

To many, the deal was puzzling given Penn State’s 7-4 record at the time. Conversely, to many around the Nittany Lions’ fanbase, the signing signaled security after years of speculation regarding Franklin’s immediate future in Happy Valley. 

However, for the former portion of the fanbase, the contract penned by Barbour signaled anything but security if results in the most meaningful matchups would continue to go awry. Starting this year, Franklin can now take any other job for a buyout of just $2 million paid for by another program. 

On the flip side, if Penn State wants to fire Franklin after the 2024 go-around, it would owe the head coach $40 million. For reference, Franklin’s buyout owed by the university peaked at $72 million in 2022 and currently amounts to $56 million. 

In two full campaigns since signing his new extension, Franklin boasts a 20-4 regular season record. The 83% regular-season winning percentage throughout the span is better than “elite” colleagues in Lincoln Riley, Dabo Swinney, Kyle Whittingham, Lane Kiffin, and Steve Sarkisian. 

Conversely, it ranks third in the Big Ten behind Ryan Day and Jim Harbaugh — who stand as Franklin’s most important rivals. Moreover, two of his losses were falters to Day and Ohio State, while the others resulted in setbacks to Harbaugh and Michigan. 

Since Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993, neither Ohio State nor Michigan has endured similar stints of success compared to the current tears of each respective program. 

Dating back to Franklin’s contract extension, Ohio State holds claim to a 16-0 conference record to teams not named Michigan. Moreover, Michigan compiled a perfect 18-0 Big Ten record throughout the span, consisting of two league titles and a coveted national championship. 

Since 2021, the average final College Football Playoff poll ranking between Ohio State and Michigan amounts to 4.5. Quite simply, over the last three seasons, roughly three teams per season were better than the combination of the Buckeyes and Wolverines.

The metric begs the question — which team, or better yet, coach, can beat both perennial titans in a given year? The results have proven that zero Big Ten coaches could complete the feat across the past three seasons. This year, not even Kalen DeBoer or Nick Saban could outlast the Wolverines. 

On October 30, 2022, Franklin hinted that Penn State “should have capitalized on that momentum [of the 2016 Big Ten Championship] and been bold and aggressive,” in progressing its program’s funding, need for facility upgrades, and buy-in from the university’s Board of Trustees. Instead, the administration largely remained complacent until needing a personnel overhaul.

But a year after Franklin’s cry for help, his tune took a stark shift since the hiring of President Neeli Bendapudi and Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft. 

“The decision that the university made in hiring Neeli Bendapudi has been huge,” Franklin said last June. “And being able to go out and hire Dr. Pat Kraft [was huge]. He’s obviously an established athletic director, whether it’s Temple or Boston College. Even more so than that, he’s a Big Ten guy. He played football in the Big Ten. I think all those things help. My relationship with Pat, really since he’s arrived on campus, has been good.”

The leadership of the two bright-minded administrators, along with Franklin’s insight, has helped Penn State play “catch up” in its attempt to gain ground on college football’s elite brands. Since Kraft’s arrival in July 2022, Penn State Athletics finished the 2022-23 sports calendar ranked No. 15 in the Learfield Directors Cup, laid out a $700 million plan to renovate Beaver Stadium, and merged two NIL collectives into one collective, Happy Valley United, to unify donor-driven revenue streams. 

Just two days ago, USA Today reported that Penn State football’s recruiting budget was more than doubled — from $1.14 million to $2.8 million — from 2022 to 2023. The mark now puts the Nittany Lions No. 5 nationally behind Tennessee, Texas A&M, Clemson, and Georgia in that category. 

Less than a month removed from a bleak, unspirited 38-25 defeat to Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl, it would be natural to feel unconfident about the Nittany Lions’ immediate future with Franklin calling the shots. 

In 20 games against top-10 opponents under Franklin’s lead, the Nittany Lions are just 3-17. Additionally, the Pennsylvania native carries a 4-16 record against Ohio State and Michigan and a 12-26 clip when facing top-25 ranked foes. 

However, during Joe Paterno’s final 10 campaigns commanding the Nittany Lions, the program wasn’t necessarily suited in a more favorable position. Paterno won 62% of his games throughout the span, while Franklin is victorious in over 69% of matchups he’s coached for the blue and white. 

In “big games,” Paterno failed to live up to expectations, too. From 2001 to 2010, the icon went 7-12 against Ohio State and Michigan. Of those contests, four of Paterno’s seven victories were against unranked Buckeye or Wolverine teams, and three of his 12 defeats were also against unranked units. 

When considering Penn State’s entire body of work since the turn of the century, it’s asinine to classify Franklin’s first 10 years as a “failure” or even a “disappointment.” 

In reality, Franklin’s toughest opponent has been his preseason ranking, recruiting success, and self-proclaimed progress before even hitting the gridiron. 

This summer, coming off of a convincing Rose Bowl win and sky-high expectations, Franklin said this regarding his returning depth entering his latest year in Happy Valley:

“What I have been very clear on, in my opinion, is I do think this is as much depth we have had,” Franklin said at media day in August. “We have a three-deep at pretty much every position, and I’d probably describe it a little bit more in more detail as probably a two-and-a-half deep… I do think we have a true three-deep. I just don’t remember us having that as consistently across the board, and that really even goes to the specialists.”

As it stands, the Nittany Lions’ recent 10-3 finish with three ranked losses and another fall at cracking the four-team postseason bracket didn’t align with Franklin’s initial quote. 

While lofty preseason expectations were certainly warranted, they could’ve been more accurately managed with level-set hopes for a limiting wide-receiving core and a first-year starter under center. 

When assessing Franklin’s entire body of work, it’s important to remember his initial remarks when he first took the stand at the Clemens Family Football Team Complex in 2014. 

“We’re coming here with the mindset that we’re going to build this program,” Franklin said. “We’re going to build it the right way, and we’re going to build it for the long haul. We plan on being here for a very, very long time. This is my dream job. This is where I want to be.”

Did he “build this program?” With five 10-win seasons, he’s undoubtedly reconstructed Penn State into a perennial top-15 brand under his leadership. 

Did Franklin “build it the right way and for the long haul?” Per Penn State Athletics, Franklin has guided his players to an 86% graduation success rate. When he first took the head role, national graduation rates at the FBS level stood at 63%. 

As for maintaining long-term stability, Franklin is on track to remain at Penn State until 2031, at a minimum. If he stays put the length of his contract, he would spend 18 years as the head man in Happy Valley. The way it currently stands, that would make Franklin the fourth longest-tenured coach nationally. 

Is this where Franklin “wants to be,” as he said when he first took the job? 

Leverage is key in curating alignment from the president, to the Board of Trustees, to the athletic department in college football. Based on Franklin’s recent tune, it appears that Happy Valley is exactly where his coaching desires lie, despite never blatantly debunking past relocation rumors. 

“I think stability is good for a lot of things and for a lot of people and a lot of organizations, but I don’t take it for granted one day,” Franklin said in August. “This is a special place in a special community with history and tradition and passion…. There’s been some challenging days, but many more good days, and I wake up every single day feeling blessed and appreciative.”

Whatever your opinion is on Franklin through 10 years of leading the Nittany Lions, it’s important to consider the metrics. Is his 32% winning clip against ranked teams “good” on the surface? Quite simply, no, it’s not.

On the contrary, are six top-12 finishes in the final College Football Playoff rankings over the last eight years “good?” Some would argue it’s elite. 

To fairly judge Franklin, it’s important to leave ambiguity to those who can only properly critique him behind closed doors. And, to one particular (and meaningful) person, he more than deserves to stay put. 

“We are a top-10 program,” Kraft said in December ahead of the Peach Bowl. “We are fighting to win a national championship. We are going to. That is our focus.”