Nick Saban takes aim at Penn State for firing James Franklin: 'It's unfair'

Six days after he was fired from Penn State, James Franklin joined the ESPN College GameDay crew to discuss the seismic decision. Nick Saban had a message for Franklin once he joined the desk, speaking to him coach-to-coach during the segment on Saturday.

He took aim directly at the Nittany Lions’ decision-makers for Franklin’s firing. The college football coaching legend disagrees with their choice to move on after the success they enjoyed under Franklin.

“It’s unfair as hell for you to go to the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, get in the Final Four,” Saban told Franklin. “Come out, being ranked number one this year — an expectation that you created by what you accomplished at Penn State — and for those people not to show enough appreciation for that and gratitude for all the hard work that you did, I’m saying it’s unfair.”

Saban knows all too well what it’s like to coach a team with national championship aspirations. His seven national title rings speak for themselves. Still, the former Alabama head coach “hated” being ranked so high each preseason because he wasn’t sure how it would impact the team’s psyche.

“You understand this better than anybody,” Franklin responded to Saban. “You’ve used the phrase ‘rat poison’, right? The negative is the rat poison that you’ve got to get everybody to tune out, and the positive is rat poison. But that creates a ton of pressure, and pressure that we’ve earned. We created that pressure.

“I think that’s the thing that I’m most proud of. When I took over the program 12 years ago it was in a very different situation than it is now.”

When Franklin took over, the Nittany Lions faced massive sanctions at the time. He eventually turned the Nittany Lions into a Big Ten Champion in 2016 and took them to the national semifinal last year.

Ultimately, Franklin leaves State College after compiling a 104-45 record since 2014 when he took the job. He is 128-60 overall as a head coach, which includes his three-year stint at Vanderbilt (24-15).

However, the 2025 season unraveled quickly for Franklin and his Nittany Lions. A 3-0 start against unremarkable non-conference opponents led to an 0-3 start against teams in the Big Ten.

Penn State isn’t required to play a Power Four opponent during its non-conference schedule, so they didn’t. Their first real test came against a top-10 Oregon team at home, which ended up being a 30-23 loss in double overtime. It was consecutive losses to UCLA and Northwestern after that which spelled the end of Franklin’s tenure in State College. All three losses came by one score.