Penn State's firing of James Franklin, search for new coach

It just might be the biggest shock-firing of this decade, if not this entire century, in college football.

James Franklin, midway through a season of great disappointment and his team diminished to an 3-3 mark, was summarily fired Sunday afternoon by Penn State Athletics Director Pat Kraft.

Lincoln Riley taking Oklahoma to conference championships and College Football Playoffs before bolting for USC remains a stunning develop for its overnight manifestation.

Brian Kelly discussing new contract terms with then-Notre Dame A.D. Jack Swarbrick, leading the Irish to a win at Stanford and then never returning to South Bend, Indiana, because he was accepting the LSU post as Ed Orgeron's replacement also lingers this decade as a college football stunner.

Those coaches bounced, however; they were not fired.

Franklin was fired exactly 277 days since his Nittany Lions took a 10-0 lead against Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl before they suffered a last-minute, 27-24 loss that thwarted Penn State's potential chance at the program's first national championship since 1986.

1986! The Ronald Reagan presidency!!

Anyway, the Penn State job is open. It is an elite post that will attract elite candidates.

Numerous sources tell FootballScoop that Indiana's Curt Cignetti and Nebraska's Matt Rhule are the top two candidates/targets for the position.

Both have obvious ties. But what does this opening right now say about Penn State? About college football?

About the economics of the game? Conservatively, this is a $150 million gambit for Kraft and Penn State.

He's been the Penn State athletics leader less than four years. He won't make it another four years if he doesn't nail this maneuver. So Kraft must call Cignetti and Rhule; people inside the building at Penn State tell FootballScoop President Scott Roussel that the Nittany Lions' brass will have a conversation with Nick Saban -- to ask the obvious but to also ask Saban's guidance and input on this process.

But the chatter around Marcus Freeman is just that: chatter. Freeman's Notre Dame job is better; undeniably better.

Notre Dame is not without its limitations, and they are different than those of Penn State; the Irish, however, are recruiting at levels under Freeman not seen since the Lou Holtz days, and they don't have a pesky conference residency to contend with on an annual basis.

Sure, that puts the onus on a program to have zero margin for error when it drops its first two games, as Notre Dame did this season. But it fell at Miami and in the waning seconds at home to Texas A&M, teams respectively ranked No. 2 and No. 4 in this week's AP Top 25.

Ohio State calling Freeman? Different conversation. An NFL franchise? Of course.

Penn State? Not a better job. But a darn-good job. One fully discussed and examined in this latest FootballScoop Podcast.

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