James Franklin Has Been FIRED at Penn State

Wow. Fifteen days ago, undefeated Penn State had a lead on Oregon in overtime. Now, the Nittany Lions are 0-3 in Big Ten play with losses to UCLA and Northwestern and James Franklin has been fired. One of the most stunning collapses we've ever seen.

Even after last week, I didn't think this was very feasible, but once Franklin went out there and laid another egg, I don't know what else could have been done. His team had quit, blue-chip recruits were beginning to drop like flies and the fanbase was some mix of viciously hostile and apathetic — and I'm not sure which is worse.

Franklin is now owed $56 million thanks to his termination. While it's a ton of money, Penn State seems to have reached a point where the money you'd lose by keeping him may have been unquantifiable. Ticket sales were going to plummet. Donations were going to dry up. Hell, high school seniors that otherwise would have spent $100,000 on a Penn State education may have looked elsewhere to spend their college years. It's a step price tag in the immediate future, but you may have actually saved yourself money in the long run.

I just can't believe how quickly this all unraveled. Halfway through the season, a team that was a national title favorite two months ago has fired a coach most people would have ranked as one of the 5-10 best in the sport coming into the year. Just unthinkable.

If there was a time to fire Franklin, though, today was the right call. You give your team — that still has talent, even if Drew Allar is out for the rest of the year — a shot in the arm for the rest of the season and get a head start on a coaching search in a year where there may be several massive job openings. Even if Florida comes open, Penn State has a case to be the best job available in this cycle.

Now it's a matter of where PSU turns. Would Curt Cignetti leave Indiana, where he's already established a championship-level program in two seasons, for a job with infinitely more pressure to win? Do you think Brian Kelly is reay to hop to another job? Making this move so decisively leads me to think the athletic department has a guy in mind it believes very strongly it can go get. But now you have to do it.

What a world. College football, man.