Franklin was the right guy for the program when he was hired. He brought enthusiasm to a program that desperately needed it after the sanctions. He worked the recruiting trail and brought in talented players, culminating in a Big Ten championship in 2016.
IMO, his downfall here at PSU was not following the blueprint that got him a BT title in 2016: dual-threat QB and aggressive playcallingAfter Moorhead and McSorley left, the PSU offense began to slowly go downhill. Now we’re over 1.5 seasons where we can’t complete passes to wide receivers.
If the rumors are true, Franklin struggled to manage the portal and NIL, choosing to spend on retention. Which lead to players questioning why other players were making more than them, and so on.
Bottom line is he couldn’t “clean up” the persistent issues, and it was time to move on.