Update, 2:17 p.m.:

Penn State Athletics confirmed the firing of James Franklin as its head coach. Cornerbacks coach Terry Smith has been named the interim head coach of Penn State football.

“Penn State owes an enormous amount of gratitude to Coach Franklin who rebuilt our football program into a national power,” Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Patrick Kraft said in a press release. “He won a Big Ten Championship, led us to seven New Year’s Six bowl games and a College Football Playoff appearance last year. However, 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.” 

Original Post

The James Franklin era is over in Happy Valley.

James Franklin has been fired as the head coach of Penn State Football following a disappointing 3-3 start to the 2025 season, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Sources: Penn State has fired James Franklin.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) October 12, 2025

After being ranked No. 2 in the country to begin the year, Franklin’s team lost three straight games after the non-conference slate and was unable to beat a Power Four opponent. The Nittany Lions carried some of the highest expectations in college football, returning a bulk of its best players and coming off a run to the College Football Playoff Semifinals for the first time under Franklin.

Franklin was hired in January of 2014, following the departure of Bill O’Brien, who left after two years for the Houston Texans. In 12 seasons at the helm of the Nittany Lions, Franklin went 104-45 and is tied with the second-most wins by a head coach in program history.

Despite the overall good numbers, Franklin was unable to ever get over the big hump in State College, going 4-21 against AP Top 10 teams during his tenure. Franklin, a Langhorne, Pennsylvania native, came to Happy Valley from Vanderbilt at a point in time when the football team needed a rebuild. Working around sanctions and scholarship cuts, he was able to quickly bring the Nittany Lions back to national prominence during the 2016 season.

Only in his third year in charge, Franklin upset Ohio State in an improbable White Out victory, claiming a Big Ten Championship over Wisconsin in Indianapolis, Indiana, and just missing out on the four-team playoff, competing in the 2017 edition of the Rose Bowl against USC.

Franklin recruited and developed multiple high school kids into NFL stars. Most notably, one of the all-time great Penn Staters, Saquon Barkley, flipped his commitment from Rutgers to Penn State, and he became one of the best players ever to wear the basic blues. Central Pennsylvania native Micah Parsons stayed home and joined Franklin in Happy Valley and is now the highest-paid defensive player in the league.

Over the last decade and change, Franklin has coached 18 All-Americans at Penn State and has seen 59 players drafted into the NFL, including eight in the first round. From a number perspective, it’s been the most successful twelve-year span in program history.

The ups and downs became more noticeable post-Barkley, Miles Sanders, Trace McSorley, and others departed Happy Valley. Penn State finished the COVID-19-shortened season in 2020 with a 4-5 record and stumbled down the stretch in 2021 to a 7-6 record.

Franklin saw the most success from 2022-24 when the Nittany Lions won 34 games over the span, the most in program history. It all fell apart over the last three weeks with losses to Oregon, UCLA, and Northwestern, and Kraft made the ultimate decision that it was time to move on from Franklin.