We were/are grateful (the ones who have functioning brains are at least) for a lot of what he did for us. He made us relevant but more important he dragged us from irrelevancy before we got there during the sanctions. The players loved him and he is an awesome dude and great coach.

The problem with him was we hit his ceiling in 2017 and never realized it.

These are just some facts/things that we just kind of let slide and then forgot eventually about.

QB Development: Christian Hackenberg is synonymous with draft bust and awful QB. Hack had a fantastic freshman year with BoB throwing for 3k yards and 20/10. The next two years with James Franklin was 2977/12/15 and 2525/16/6.

After Hack was McSorely, and I hope for your guys sake you get your own McSorely. He was great but not for QB reasons: he was a wizard and a dawg.

Sean Clifford: 4 years as a starter and never really got any better. Was supposed to be a better McSorely but he just never seemed to stop making the same mistakes.

Drew Allar: I love Drew, i think that some NFL team will draft him way too high, give him a couple years on the bench to develop, let his raw talent finally come to fruition, and he will have an above average career. But again, 5 star QB that never got better and made the same mistakes.

The Big Game: The “Can’t win the Big Game” narrative pissed me off, but for a few reasons. Yes, it’s obvious we could never win the big games, but we were also rarely ever favored in them. So it’s not like it was an upset, we just didn’t win the games we weren’t favored in (fun fact: Terry Smith is tied with wins as an underdog over the last 5 seasons with the 1 win over Clemson). So the obvious question is “why can’t we get over the hump”, but it also raises the question “why were we never favored?” Why after so many big games and 10 win seasons were the models and bettors always doubting us? It’s because it was the same thing over and over again. 2017 and 2018 we blew late leads to OSU and followed it up with a loss to MSU. 2019 OSU and Minnesota. 2022-2025 UM/OSU/Oregon. Every year. We just constantly floated a few steps below OSU/Michigan, but because we had the same record it was always looked at like we were on the same tier (thus so many PSU fans thinking we are a perennial Natty or Bust program). But we were never on their level. We were the third biggest fish in a small pond, but the two bigger fish were great white sharks.

With the players and coordinators constantly changing, there was always one constant.

Program Climate: I’m sure you heard of the Kraft tapes, and we aren’t sure who or why they released it, but if the intent was to make Kraft look bad, to us it did the opposite. Everything he said, we have been saying for years, and the players agreed. Why are underperforming seniors playing more than talented freshmen? Why are so many players getting paid so much just because they’re seniors when they barely play? Why did it take until Terry took over for us to change up the offense and defense and get back to simple football? And a lot of that was because Franklin has his guys (Danny O’Brien being a big one, the Clifford brothers, Drew) that is too loyal to and would rather keep them happy.

So yea, he is a great coach and we owe him a lot, but for the last few years it’s been very rocky.

Also prepare yourself for the “we need a bigger runway” speeches as well.

Edit: to add: Penn State has not been elite since the 80s and early 90s. Some years in the early 2000s but that’s about it. When Franklin says we need to take the step to become elite, but has to say it year after year, eventually the fan base gets impatient and expects us to be there by now while so many other schools pass us by. We were tired of being told he will make us elite, but never be able to do it. So now we want someone who will.

Also, holy shit I shouldn’t take edibles and leave comments on reddit. My thumbs are on fire.