Back on Oct. 13, the Penn State Nittany Lions, who entered the season ranked No. 2 in the preseason AP Poll, decided to fire longtime head coach James Franklin after more than 10 seasons with the program.
Terry Smith has stepped in as the interim coach, and while he’s kept the team competitive, the Nittany Lions have now lost six straight games after starting 3-0. Three of those losses came under Franklin before his dismissal.
With Penn State on the brink of becoming ineligible for a postseason bowl game, the search for a new head coach is very much underway. This week, Max Chadwick of Pro Football Focus predicted potential hires for several programs with openings.
For Penn State, he projected the Nittany Lions to dip into the SEC and land one of the fastest-rising coaches in the country: Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz.
“Drinkwitz has done a great job at Missouri over the last three years, compiling a 27-8 record since 2023. If the Tigers close out this year ranked, it’ll be the first time in program history where Missouri has finished three consecutive seasons inside the AP Top 25. Missouri has brought in a top-25 recruiting class in each of the last two cycles and has done an outstanding job in the transfer portal,” Chadwick wrote. “Drinkwitz could do even better at a bigger program like Penn State.”
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As for Franklin, his coaching career is far from over. On Saturday, during ESPN’s “College GameDay,” Pete Thamel reported that Franklin is already in the “early stages” of discussions with the Virginia Tech Hokies.
“James Franklin and Virginia Tech are in the early stages of talks, with some resolution on his candidacy expected in the upcoming days,” Thamel reported. “Tech is still running a full search, but it’s clear there’s mutual interest between the parties.”
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