There is this notion that he somehow stepped into a disaster at Penn State and turned it all around and brought it out of the darkness of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. He didn’t. Bill O’Brien is the coach who had to follow Joe Paterno and somehow keep the program from becoming a dumpster fire in the wake of all that went on, and he did just that by going 15-9 and keeping things afloat in two seasons despite recruiting sanctions and everything else.
Franklin did do a good job of getting the program to the cusp of the next level, as he won 11 games in back-to-back years in his third and fourth seasons and even won the Big Ten title in 2016. But this is his eighth season as coach, and he has only produced a top-10 team (in the final AP poll) three times.
He has one division title (that led to a Big Ten title) and his record against Ohio State (1-6), Michigan (3-4) and Michigan State (3-4) is a combined 7-14. His record against ranked and top-10 opponents is abysmal as detailed
in this article. In case you don’t want to take the time to read it, he is 2-9 in games against top-10 opponents (likely to be 2-10 after this weekend in Columbus), and both of those wins came in that magical 2016 season.
He is 65-30 overall and 40-25 in Big Ten games, and those numbers speak to a successful — but certainly not elite — coach, especially when you consider his record in big games and his relative lack of hardware. He is 9-7 in his last 16 games, and if Saturday’s Illinois disaster is any indication, Penn State is a threat to get beat in every game left on its schedule.