Paul Finebaum: It's getting difficult to take James Franklin seriously

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum can’t really take Penn State coach James Franklin seriously anymore, especially after Saturday. Penn State lost to Oregon 30-24 in double overtime at home, missing out on a chance at an unbeaten regular season and massive win against a top 10 team, again.

Franklin is now 4-21 against top 10 teams as Penn State, which is quite alarming, even before Saturday’s loss to the Ducks. The College Football Playoff is still in play, even if Finebaum doesn’t think so at this point.

But the fact that the Nittany Lions fell short once again, it’s just deja vu all over again. You know, it’s like Yogi Berra describing Penn State football.

“Yeah, there’s not much emotion in talking about James Franklin anymore,” Finebaum said on The Matt Barrie Show. “It’s become so repetitive. And how many times are we going to hear him say, ‘Yeah, I mean, this was our chance?’ I mean, it’s unreal.

“And I think Oregon is a really, really outstanding team and their quarterback play’s elite. But okay, that’s pretty much the every year conversation, but you mark the game with the White Out. This is your moment. And if you’re going to be taken seriously, you have to deliver. So I say this with no emotion and with no glee, but it’s getting really difficult to take James Franklin seriously anymore as a big time coach.” 

Penn State trailed 17-3 in the fourth quarter before storming back to force overtime. Leading 24-17 in the extra period, Franklin and crew had a chance. But in the end, they were on the losing end of the stick.

“He does the same thing every time, his team manages, under him, to blow the big game,” Finebaum said. “It’s a terrible narrative, because, as he said, it’s fact. His path is pretty rough right now, because he played Florida International, Nevada and Villanova, that’s his fault. You don’t even have to play a great team. You just have to play someone respectable and we take you seriously. But it’s hard to take that program seriously with that preseason.”

Franklin tried to keep it in perspective too. But many fans, like Finebaum, are numb to this type of postgame presser.

“The way college football is today, there’s going to be very few teams that finish the end of the season unscathed,” Franklin said. “We got to learn from this. Need to have a great week next week. We got to tune out all the noise, and we got to get better from this and get on a roll for the rest of the season.”