Athletic Director Pat Kraft has addressed Nittany Nation about the decision and interim head coach Terry Smith, a Nittany Lion through and through, has previewed what’s next for the team’s team six regular season games.
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It’s an argument that can be applied to all sorts of life situations but was ready-made for football coaches:
Do you go with the devil you know, or the devil you don’t?
Penn State fans had been going around and around with this one for a few years before this season and the fateful three-week stretch that sealed James Franklin’s fate. On the one side, you had the optimists, who felt Franklin was pushing the program ever closer to the top of the summit, one that was more easily accessible with the expanded playoff format, and that maybe they were a player or a coordinator or a fat donation away. On the other, the fans who had long since made up their mind about the — and they never tired of using this term — “used-car salesman” whose tendency to come up short in big games was about a sure a thing as there was in sports. Give them someone else — anyone else.
I guess now we’ll find out one way or the other, right?
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It was all over his face.
James Franklin had just watched his super-hyped, seven-figure quarterback get helped off the field on the Nittany Lions’ gotta-have-it drive, then his backup come in and get squashed on another futile fourth-down call, then his defense fail to get a stop and provide his offense one more fleeting chance.
It was the third loss in a row in a season that was supposed to have been the one that finally got him and his program over the hump. Franklin made his customary walk to midfield and congratulated his counterpart, Northwestern’s David Braun, while the fans who he had always praised and encouraged serenaded him with a chorus of Homecoming boos and “Fire Franklin.”
