College GameDay floats Arkansas, Florida as potential escape for James Franklin

No. 7 Penn State was on the wrong side of history Saturday afternoon as it fell to winless UCLA 42-37 in Los Angeles. The Nittany Lions became the first team since 1984 to lose to an 0-4 team while ranked inside of the Top-10 of the AP Poll Rankings.

Saturday’s loss put even more heat on James Franklin, who fell to 15-29 against ranked opponents last weekend as Penn State‘s head coach in the Nittany Lions’ 30-24 2OT loss to No. 6 Oregon. Although Franklin’s teams are consistently near the top of the Big Ten, they have never quite broken through the upper echelon of the conference.

This constant disappointment and fan backlash has led to some suggesting that Franklin would be better off coaching elsewhere next season. During the latest edition of the ‘College GameDay Podcast‘, veteran sportswriter Dan Wetzel suggested that Franklin could escape to Arkansas or Florida.

“Does (James) Franklin sit there and say ‘look, I’ve done my work here. Let’s go somewhere else”, Wetzel asked. “Does he go back to the SEC and go to Arkansas or Florida?”

ESPN‘s Pete Thamel however quickly interjected with a shot at the Arkansas program.

“You don’t leave Penn State for Arkansas,” Thamel interjected. “My Gosh.”

Wetzel continued with his suggestion that Franklin would probably be better off elsewhere. He continued to pile on the Penn State football program, calling it ‘wobbly’.

“Do you want to go back and coach under the misery, especially if Ohio State beats them?” Wetzel continued. “Let’s say they end up with four losses and Indiana beats them. I don’t know how good these guys are. At some point, you’ve made a lot of money and you just wanna end your career and take something else? This is a wobbly program right now.”

Just two of Penn State‘s final seven opponents this season are against teams ranked in the AP Top 25 (No. 1 Ohio State and No. 7 Indiana). With losses in those games, the Nittany Lions would sit at 8-4 and be nowhere near the College Football Playoff.

“I understand the concept of getting a fresh set of downs,” ESPN‘s Rece Davis said. “All the criticism and critique of Franklin and the program and the players and the game is fair. That’s fair game. Escalating it to firing to me is ridiculous because it can always be worse. All you have to do is look all of the problems powerhouse program have had with coaching transitions. They are so easy to get wrong.

“I was pretty pointed in my criticism of Penn State, but now I’m going to say this. He’s a good coach. He’s a really good coach. I agree with getting from good to great, to great to championship is the step, but you don’t know if you’re not gonna cycle backwards and be average again. That could happen.”