Paul Finebaum puts James Franklin on blast: 'His time is up'

James Franklin may, either way, remain the head coach at Penn State. However, coming off an all-time bad loss that already has the Nittany Lions’ season on the line, Paul Finebaum thinks it’s already over for him in Happy Valley.

Returning to ‘Get Up’ on Tuesday morning, Finebaum assessed Franklin’s standing coming off of the 42-37 loss for Penn State at UCLA on Saturday. He thinks his tenure there, while likely to continue regardless based on the amount on his buyout, has already been as good as it’ll ever be with this season looking like it’s now over for the Nittany Lions.

“I think it’s really in peril,” said Finebaum of Franklin’s situation. “And, I’m not suggesting he’s going to be fired – not with a $50 million buyout. But it just feels to me like his time is up.

“He can do no better than he’s done, and he has done remarkably well but not good enough for Penn State’s standard. So, when he gives yet another lame apology, excuse, however you want to characterize it? It doesn’t resonate with his fanbase, who has just witnessed one of the worst losses in Penn State history, or any other college football team’s history. It was that bad.”

As we all know, Franklin has had his issues winning against top-ranked competition, being 15-29 (.341) against the Top-25 and 4-21 (.160) against the Top-10. This, though, was nothing close to a ranked matchup at all, with Penn State looking to get right in Pasadena, coming off one of those top-ten losses to Oregon the week prior, against a winless, coach-less team in the Bruins.

Instead, the Nittany Lions were down as much as 20 inside the Rose Bowl, eventually losing by five, to a team that had lost all four of their games by an average of -17, a team with an interim coach, and a team with a new playcaller who’d been doing it for just days, to fall to 3-2. That’s a very bad loss in and of itself, but is even worse as it being the second loss of their season already, each being in conference play too, has them now likely to miss the College Football Playoff.

After finally making the playoff, reaching the semifinals, last season, and with what all they brought back and added this offseason, Penn State was thinking about title contention in the Big Ten and the CFP. Now, very likely to miss altogether now, and based on his resumé, 2024 may really have been as good as it was going to get for either Franklin or for the Nittany Lions during his time leading the program.

Again, because of the buyout, Franklin likely isn’t done yet in University Park. But, with this season set to underachieve, Finebaum says it already is over for him anyway with Penn State.