Robert Griffin III trolls Penn State coaching search, names James Franklin best candidate

Robert Griffin III poked a little fun at Penn State’s coaching search by referring to James Franklin. Franklin, now at Virginia Tech, is already making waves on National Signing Day.

“Penn State might have to hire James Franklin back from Virginia Tech at this point,” Griffin III wrote on Twitter/X. The former Heisman winner has jokes!

And speaking of jokes, Franklin might’ve trolled Penn State with some dessert from Crumbl on Wednesday. For reference, the Crumbl CEO kept another Nittany Lions’ coaching target away from State College.

Penn State AD Pat Kraft promised a big swing for the next head coach but they’ve missed. BYU’s Kalani Sitake was the top target, but he elected to sign a new deal with the Cougars. Cookies are powerful!

There is still a chance Penn State lands the right head coach this cycle. For now, though, it’s been a difficult stretch, and Paul Finebaum even thinks that the search has become embarrassing.

“It’s a disaster. How you can go as long as they have gone without hiring a coach? I mean, we’ve been here every day. 10, 15, 20 schools have replaced coaches. What is wrong with Penn State and Heather said something interesting. They have all the money in the world. They had the best class in the country coming into the season, and James Franklin still found a way to screw it up,” Finebaum said.

“I think this program is a shell of its former self. I don’t care how much money they have, but when you’re now heading into the first weekend in December without a coach, it’s pretty embarrassing.”

Franklin’s tenure in Blacksburg is already off and running as the Hokies secured a surprising Top 25 recruiting class on Wednesday’s Early Signing Day, according to Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, thanks in part to double-digit flips from 10 former Penn State commits.

During an appearance Wednesday on Rivals’ College Football National Signing Day show on YouTube, Franklin opened up about what went into building out Virginia Tech’s hastily-put-together 2026 signing class, including how much contact he had with recruits during his month-long hiatus.

“Not a whole lot. To be honest with you, when everything went down, I needed to take a little bit of time and take a deep breath, it was kind of shocking and caught me and my family off guard. So we were kind of working through that,” Franklin said Wednesday. “And then people started reaching out, (Penn State) recruits that obviously had not signed yet and were interested in going where I was going to go. And I went on ESPN (College GameDay) and that kind of got some things going as well, and people were excited and wanted to come with us.

“So all these things factored into it, but ultimately, I wanted to make sure that they were in the best position to take care of them and their families and their futures, so I didn’t know if it would time up. But it ended up working out.”