For all the frustrated fans begging their favorite school to fire their coach immediately, take a gander over at Penn State. Under first-year coach Matt Campbell, Penn State is 3-2. The Nittany Lions, which began the season ranked No. 18, have lost their last two games to Wisconsin and Northwestern.
Already 12th in the Big Ten, Penn State has No. 19 USC this weekend and then a similarly slumping Michigan team the week after. Northwestern outgained Penn State 506-291 in its 34-13 win last Friday. James Franklin doesn't look so bad now, does he?
It was almost exactly a year ago that Penn State AD Pat Kraft fired Franklin. Penn State pulled the plug on Oct. 12 after a loss to … Northwestern dropped the program to 3-3. Franklin had guided Penn State to a College Football Playoff semifinal the previous season, but Penn State grew sick of his antics after 12 seasons and believed it could do better.
Penn State wanted a coach more capable of winning a national championship. The obvious is that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. There comes a point where a fanbase and/or an administration gets sick enough of what they have that any alternative sounds better.
For all his faults, Franklin wasn't a bad football coach. That is evident in the fact that he already has Virginia Tech, a controversial play away, a 5-0 record in his debut season down in Blacksburg. But even if you believed it was time to move on from Franklin -- and there's a justifiable argument that it may have been -- you still need to land the plane with the right guy to follow him and take over the program.
And from the moment Penn State fired Franklin, there was considerable industry skepticism that the school was going to be able to land the caliber of coach that justified its decision. Early options like Nebraska's Matt Rhule, Texas A&M's Mike Elko and Indiana's Curt Cignetti quickly took themselves out of consideration. Despite fan speculation, Alabama's Kalen DeBoer was never a serious option.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
