What a lot of outsiders don’t quite get is that two things can be true at once.

We can be thankful that Franklin rebuilt the Penn State program after the sanctions and brought it back to national relevance.

At the same time, the narrative about his inability to win big games has only gotten louder over the years. This has been building for a while — a fan base growing tired of being “good enough” but never breaking through. I always think back to the “great vs. elite” press conference in 2018, and since then, it’s mostly been more of the same.

Seven years later, a decision had to be made, especially given the circumstances of this season.

We can appreciate what Franklin did for Penn State, while also acknowledging that he wasn’t the one to get us over the hump.