Pat Kraft on firing James Franklin: 'I felt that there was no other course'

After falling to 3-3 on the season with a loss to Northwestern, Penn State fired head coach James Franklin. On Monday, Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft opened up the decision to part ways with Franklin.

“I felt after sitting down Saturday and looking at everything, at where we were in terms of the best interest of the athletes and where the program was going that we had to make the hard decision,” Kraft said. “Looking at where the program was, where it is, and where we want to be, I felt that there was no other course. I felt it was time.”

Penn State entered the season ranked as the No. 2 team in the country. James Franklin was seemingly guiding the Nittany Lions into a new chapter of his career after leading the team to the College Football Playoff semifinals last season.

While Penn State didn’t burst out of the starting gates this season, it went 3-0 and maintained its high ranking. Then, the Nittany Lions fell short when they encountered their first test: a showdown against Oregon.

The Ducks defeated Penn State on its home turf and fans chanted for the school to fire Franklin. Alas, a loss to Oregon was far from season-ending. It wasn’t until Penn State fell to UCLA, which had fired head coach DeShaun Foster after Week 3, that there was serious concern around Franklin’s future.

When the Nittany Lions lost again on Saturday, this time to a subpar Northwestern team, fans weren’t the only ones calling for Franklin’s job. Less than 24 hours later, the school let Franklin go despite having to pay the second-largest buyout in college football history.

“James Franklin is a good friend who has always carried himself with dignity, and represented Penn State with absolute class” Kraft said. “We are all fortunate to have had James Franklin to lead this program for more than a decade and we wish nothing but the best for him and his family.

“That said, at Penn State we hold all our programs to the highest standard in a shared pursuit of excellence. The football program is our backbone. We’ve invested in it at the highest level. With that comes high expectations.”

Those expectations will carry over to Penn State’s next head man. Franklin had been PSU’s head coach since 2014. Now, Pat Kraft and the school will search for a new leader to guide them past the disappointing 2025 campaign.