James Franklin Opens Up About His Final Season at Penn State

Penn State's Lion Surplus shop on eBay recently featured a now-famous relic of the James Franklin era. It was a "1-0" sign that Franklin used to remind the Nittany Lions of his program's de facto mission statement for nearly 12 years.

The sign sold quickly, as it's no longer listed on the Lion Surplus site. Judging from a recent interview he conducted, Franklin might have bought it himself.

Franklin, who is leading Virginia Tech through spring practice, appeared on the Andy & Ari On3 show, where he briefly peeled back the curtain of his final season at Penn State, which he ended with a 3-3 record and three consecutive losses. Penn State fired Franklin one day after a 22-21 loss to Northwestern that marked the end of the road after nearly 12 years.

Speaking with hosts Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman, Franklin covered a variety of topics, including the "huge chip on my shoulder" born from last season. But he also made a few interesting references about a philosophical shift regarding his "1-0" theme.

"I'm a big 1-0 guy, ... almost to the frustration of a lot of people," Franklin said on the show. "And last year, trying something different, trying to be a little more aggressive, [we] allowed our team and our coaches to talk more big-picture than we ever have. So there are things like that that we learned from that experrience and grew from that experience and a number of others. There's some risk that you're going to have to take in any business model, but there's also some risk that I would not take again."

Big guest on the show today. James Franklin joins and is honest about having a huge chip on his shoulder after the way things went down at Penn State last year. pic.twitter.com/kxxAI966rs
— Ari Wasserman (@AriWasserman) April 2, 2026

Penn State began 2025 ranked No. 2 in the preseason AP Top 25, which Franklin allowed himself to reference occasionally before the opener vs. Nevada. At Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas, Franklin said his team had the "best combined personnel" of any he had coached. He also said that Penn State had the opportunity to "change that narrative" regarding its inability to beat Ohio State or win a "big game."

"I'm extremely proud and I'm extremely confident, but again, there is complete recognition and embracing what we got to do and where we got to go," Franklin said in Las Vegas, where he wasn't thrilled to be. "And the best part about it is, we're in total control of it, right? If we want the narrative to change, we got an opportunity to change it. We want people to shut up? We can shut them up real easy."

Reflecting on that strategy from his office at Virginia Tech, Franklin said he wouldn't use it again.

"There was a lot of excitement about the season," Franklin said on the show. "Players were excited, and obviously we were trying to take that next step. So we made some philosophical tweaks and changes to be more aggressive and maybe more aware of these types of things and allowed the players to have conversations and allowed the staff to have conversations that we typically hadn't in the past.

"Those were questions that we were always going to get. We allowed more of that last year, and obviously looking back at it, I don't think that was the right thing to do. [We] had a model that worked for 14 years [at Vanderbilt and Penn State], and that's one example of a number of things that we would have done differently."

Franklin says "we" in part because so many of his core staff members have been with him from Vanderbilt to Penn State to Virginia Tech. Franklin brought two assistants, two members of his strength staff, his general manager, his chief of staff and several other football operations personnel with him from Penn State to Virginia Tech.

Twelve former Nittany Lions, including quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer, followed Franklin to Virginia Tech as well. And during the interview, Franklin pointed to jerseys of Micah Parsons and Saquon Barkley that were on his office walls but out of the camera's sight.

"We have a resume over 15 years of success in the SEC, success in the Big Ten, so that history is helpful," Franklin said. "... We were able to do some things that we're very proud of at both Vanderbilt and Penn State, and we're going to take a lot of those lessons that we learned over the last 15 years and pour them into Virginia Tech."

Watch the entire interview for more from Franklin.

Virginia Tech Hokies football coach James Franklin speaks to fans on the sideline before a game at Lane Stadium. | Brian Bishop-Imagn Images

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