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James Franklin was invited to the stage for an interview during ESPN’s College GameDay pregame show on Saturday morning. It was the former Penn State head coach’s first public appearance since he was fired on Oct. 12. Here’s a transcript of the full interview.
Rece Davis: “As you’ve gone through the last few days, how’d you become aware at first and find out the news that Penn State wanted to move on and part ways with you?“
Franklin: “We were a practice Sunday team, and we have a team meeting at 1:45. About 1:30, the AD [Pat Kraft] walked in and said, ‘We’re going to make a change. I’m sorry.’ I was in shock, obviously. Really took the next 15 minutes to let my kids know so they wouldn’t find out on the internet, and then walked down and had a super emotional meeting with the team to tell them I was leaving. Really that was it. It was that quick, obviously pretty much in shock as that was going on.”
Davis: “I mean, given all of the things that you accomplished there and the number of games that you won, how fairly do you feel you were treated by making this decision?“
Franklin: “Well, fair is not for me to decide, right? That’s for other people to decide, a decision that was made that was hard for me to comprehend at the time. But what I want to do is I want to focus on all the unbelievable moments. I had a great run there, 12 years, Penn State was good to me and my family. Most importantly, it’s about the players. I’m a players coach, I always have been. That’s the hardest part, is walking away from all those young men in that locker room, the recruits that were committed to us, lot of tough conversations. So that’s the challenge, is it’s the people at the end of the day, the coaches, the staffs, their families, the kids. What I don’t think people realize is how many people this affects, a ton of people. That’s where my heart breaks.”
Desmond Howard: “When a coach gets fired, it touches a lot of people, like you said, the coach, his staff, and of course the players. Would you mind speaking on how this has affected your family?“
Franklin: “So my daughter, you guys have seen pictures, they came to Penn State when they were 4 or 5 years old. We were blessed that the majority of their upbringing was in State College. They’re now a freshman in college and a senior in high school. My youngest thought she was going to go to Penn State, obviously, the plans have changed there.
For me, I think about everybody. I remember being the head coach of Vanderbilt and having an Easter party, standing up there and talking to all the coaches and the wives and the kids, and for the first time in that moment, I looked out and I realized I’m responsible for all these people. If I’m successful, all these people will flourish, and if I’m not, it’s going to create a lot of challenges for a ton of different people. So that’s really what the last six days have been, most importantly comforting my daughter; my wife is the toughest one in the family, so I don’t need to worry about her. But then it’s been a ton of players reaching out, talking to their parents, telling them to take a deep breath, everything’s going to be fine. And then the same thing with recruits. It’s been a lot, but most importantly that’s what’s all about for me. I got into this business to help people and most importantly young men, and I’m going to continue to do that.”
Kirk Herbstreit:” Last year, you’re in Miami in the semifinal. This year, preseason, high expectations. You’re playing Oregon a couple weeks ago in double overtime, you win that game, you’re probably still getting ready to coach. How did this happen? You’ve had probably a lot of time to reflect. How did we get here so quickly?“
Franklin: “I can’t answer that. To be honest with you, I’m still working through it myself. It feels surreal. I just got a message from Drew Allar’s dad that he’s sitting home as well, we both should be in Iowa, that’s what we’re used to doing and how we operate. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and 15 years as a head coach, to think, essentially six games ago, we were fighting for a chance to be in the national championship. We were a two-minute drive away. So that’s the thing, I really can’t answer that, Kirk. Twelve years, a ton of good moments, a bunch of big wins, but decisions were made, and I’m not involved in those decisions. I’m very, very grateful for the time I had, and most importantly for the relationships I was able to build. I thought we were going to win a national championship there, we were close. That goal hasn’t changed. We’re just going to go win a national championship somewhere else.”
Saban: “You made the statement, it’s not up to you to decide what’s fair or unfair when Rece asked you that question. I’m gonna answer it: it’s unfair as hell. For you to go to the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, get into the Final Four, come out being ranked No. 1 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. But I will ask you this, because this is one thing that I hated, was we were ranked No. 1 going into preseason several times, and I hated that. Absolutely hated it, because you didn’t know how it was going to affect your team. So being No. 1 out of the box this year, do you think that affected the way your team prepared to start the season?“
Franklin: “Well, I think, Coach, you understand this better than anybody, right? You’ve used the phrase ‘rat poison,’ right? The negative is 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, and 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, and that’s something I take great pride in, right? The program was in a very, very difficult position, one of the most historical sanctions in NCAA history, and we got them back to being a consistent contender. So you understand how hard that is and the work that went into it, but the expectations, we created them. So I take pride in that, obviously we gotta do a better job of tuning all that noise out and focus on being 1-0 and the task at hand, but that’s challenging, as you know, coach, we’ve talked about that a bunch.”
Pat McAfee: “As a person that’s around more than a handful of the Penn State cultists, they will thank you in time for what you did at Penn State. So you need to know that as well, they’re going to be very grateful for everything you did up there, because you’re talking about the time you took it over to what it is now, you’ve obviously done an incredible job up there. There’s a lot of great things happening in State College because of the work that you did. You’ve alluded to it a couple different times. We’re just gonna go for this national championship elsewhere. When does that start? How does that start? Immediately upon the decision getting made, do you say ‘I’m a football guy, I’m coaching still,’ or how do you get to that point on what is next?“
Franklin: “To be honest with you, the first thing was like, I need to take a deep breath. I need to make sure that people that are around me are in a good place. But after that, I don’t know anything else, I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I don’t have hobbies, I don’t golf, I don’t fish. This has been such a big part of my identity, such a big part of my family. We love it. So I think it was take a deep breath, kind of in shock, surreal for a moment, and then it’s we gotta get back to doing what we do, which is help young people achieve their dreams, get a great education, still balance what college football has become, the student-athlete experience and big-time business, but there’s a way to do that, and I can’t wait for that next challenge, and we’re going to go win a national championship at the highest level.
Davis: “When Penn State made the decision, they cited the top 10 record … you’ve handled it and faced it head on. As you evaluate the next step, will you change anything about your approach, the way you go at these ‘big games’ that created a lot of the negativity around the program at Penn State?“
Franklin: “I think, to Nick’s point, there’s things that I know we did as well as anybody in the country, but every offseason, you’ve got to take time, and after what just happened, we’re going to do that even more. So I’m going to do that even more. How can we take advantage of these situations? How can we maximize opportunities? How can we make the fan base, the alumni, the lettermen super proud of what we’re doing, but also the other thing I wanna make sure I hit on: we did it with integrity and class the entire time, and that’s not something that’s happening universally around the country.”
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