James Franklin surges as favorite to land SEC head coaching job

Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin walks off the field | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

These SEC head coaching searches sure are something. While Lane Kiffin remains the biggest fish in the ocean, the other list of names have taken turns as the favorites at jobs across the country. Of course, one of those men is James Franklin, the recently fired Penn State head coach.

Franklin hit the market very early in the year after massively disappointing Penn State's championship expectations on the heels of a preseason No. 1 ranking. Since his departure, though, Franklin's name has routinely popped up on leaderboards for other jobs that have opened. At first, Virginia Tech appeared to be strongly considering him, but now, he's emerged as the favorite at yet another school, according to the predictive trading market Kalshi.

Kalshi still lists James Franklin as the favorite to land the Virginia Tech job, but he's now surged to take over as their leading candidate to take the Arkansas job as well. Kalshi gives him a 52% chance of taking the Razorbacks' opening, slightly higher than his 50% chance to take the Virginia Tech gig as of this writing.

Arkansas Razorbacks running back Braylen Russell (0) celebrates after rushing for a touchdown | Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

Background on James Franklin's situation

At just 53 years old, Franklin still has plenty of time left in the tank and you'd think he would get back into coaching at some point, even if not this season. However, Kalshi seems very confident he will, in fact, return to the college football sidelines next fall, this time with Arkansas or Virginia Tech. He's also been listed as a potential option at UCLA and Florida.

The Arkansas job has seen a carousel of names come and go as Kalshi favorites. Franklin has a pretty commanding lead compared to the other past favorites, but guys like Ryan Silverfield at Memphis once held the top spot, as did Bobby Petrino for a minute, and even Jon Gruden made a quick surge toward the top. All the while, SMU's Rhett Lashlee remains one of the steadier options on the market but did ink a contract extension that's expected to keep him in Dallas.

Penn State also stands to benefit if James Franklin does land another job. Reporter Amanda Christovich, with Front Office Sports, obtained a copy of his 2021 contract and previously reported that the 10-year deal Franklin signed in 2021 included several key clauses that could mitigate the buyout of the deal's remaining six years.

Franklin's 2021 contract said that Penn State's buyout payments would be "offset" by any salary he makes at his next job in football. The deal also stated that Franklin must "diligently search" for another position "appropriate for his skill set" and make "good faith efforts to obtain the maximum reasonable salary" in his next position.

So, whether or not James Franklin wants to coach again, he's sort of contractually obligated to at least search for a new position.