Urban Meyer suggests Penn State already knows James Franklin's replacement

When you're a big-time school like Penn State, you don't fire your football coach unless you already know who will replace him. Or so Urban Meyer says.

Penn State may already know who will replace James Franklin, former coach turned analyst Urban Meyer has suggested. | Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Just six games after emerging as the No. 2 team in college football, Penn State fired head coach James Franklin in the midst of a full-spectrum collapse following a disastrous 3-3 start, and now the school begins the hard, critical work of finding his replacement.

That is, unless they already have an idea of who will succeed Franklin. That’s the opinion of former coach turned analyst Urban Meyer, who believes that Penn State may already be leaning in a direction of who will take over the program.

Does Penn State have someone in mind?

“When you fire a coach, when his record was 104-45 and was in the Rose Bowl, Peach Bowl, and a score away from playing for a national championship, and 16 days ago he could have had the possible No. 1 team in the country, I don’t think you make that move, with a $75 million expense coming, unless you know who you’re gonna hire,” he said.

Usually, when a college football program fires a head coach, it goes through a long process of hiring a search firm at considerable expense, who in turn brings the athletic director a list of possible candidates.

“The reason they do that is because with those types of schools, you have to go out and search who’s interested. Because those aren’t top-five or top-ten jobs,” Meyer explained on The Triple Option podcast. “Penn State is a whole different animal.”

He added: “In that way, the head coach at the other school can say he hasn’t really spoken to anyone and the AD can say, ‘I’ve never talked to that coach.’ Because he hasn’t. It’s all through third-party stuff. They get the list together and go start recruiting or whatever when that’s done. At Penn State, I think it’s a whole different animal.”

Penn State's season to forget

Penn State debuted as the No. 2 team in the country when the preseason AP college football rankings were released, as voters were confident in the reserve of experienced players, especially on offense, who returned to the team in 2025.

Coming off last year’s run into the College Football Playoff semifinal, the Nittany Lions were poised for a return to the postseason, and hoping to play a little longer.

But it all came unraveled in a Whiteout Game a couple weeks ago when Penn State, then No. 3 in the poll, hosted No. 6 Oregon in a battle of undefeated, ranked Big Ten rivals.

A double overtime later, the Nittany Lions came out on the losing end, but expected to look better in what looked like a very winnable schedule.

But then came a shocking loss on the road against then-winless UCLA in which the defense allowed 42 points to a team that had scored over 20 points just once before, and then another stunner at home against unranked Northwestern in which quarterback Drew Allar was lost to a season-ending injury.

Then came Franklin’s dismissal, and Penn State’s race to replace him. While several big names have been connected to the vacancy -- from Curt Cignetti to Matt Rhule to Marcus Freeman to Matt Campbell -- the school is yet to indicate any direction.

But if Urban Meyer is right, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a plan in place already.

(Triple Option)

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