How much is James Franklin's contract buyout after loss to UCLA?

An 0-4 team hadn’t beaten a top-10 team in 40 years. UCLA made history Saturday.

The 0-4 Bruins — behind an interim head coach and defensive coordinator and offensive coordinator — toppled No. 7 Penn State, 42-37, at the Rose Bowl.

The Nittany Lions could not stop UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava and his offense, and a slow start after losing the White Out to Oregon doomed a second-half comeback.

Penn State fans already started chanting to fire James Franklin during the fourth quarter of the White Out inside Beaver Stadium. Now, after the worst loss of his career, it begs the question:

How much would it cost to fire the 12th-year head coach?

Franklin signed his current contract on Nov. 23, 2021. The 10-year deal paying him a base of $8 million annually, plus a $500,000 retention bonus each year, took effect on Jan. 1, 2022.

If the university were to fire him without cause, Penn State owes Franklin his entire base salary ($500,000) plus his supplemental pay ($6.5 million) and his life insurance loan ($1 million) — $8 million total — multiplied by the number of years remaining. As he’s still in coaching year 2025, the fourth of 10, he would be owed seven years worth of salary.

In other words, Penn State would owe James Franklin $56 million if it fired him after the UCLA loss. If it waited until Jan. 1, 2026, it would be $48 million.

That’s a big number.

It could certainly be prohibitive to athletic director Pat Kraft actually making the move to fire the longtime head coach, but it won’t stop fans from calling for it.

There was also an amendment last summer to Franklin’s contract regarding incentives, which better reflects the 12-team College Football Playoff. But exact terms were never made public. Thus, based on the original contract, Franklin has also accrued $2.75 million in incentives and retention bonuses for College Football Playoffs and bowl game appearances.

Franklin, who came to Penn State in 2014 from Vanderbilt, has a 104-44 record with the Nittany Lions. He won the 2016 Big Ten Championship and appeared in the game in 2024. He had also taken Penn State to four New Year’s Six bowl games, with a 2-2 record, before the expanded CFP. Last season, Penn State finished one game short of the national championship with an Orange Bowl loss to Notre Dame.

There has been a lot of success under Franklin at Penn State. But the UCLA loss will be a tough pill to swallow — especially with the expectation that the Lions could compete for a national title in 2025 .

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