Who’s next at Penn State? AD Pat Kraft faces a huge decision after firing James Franklin

The early discourse around Penn State’s decision Sunday to fire James Franklin has largely focused on whether athletics director Pat Kraft will be able to bring in a coach who would be considered an “upgrade.”

That’s a foreign concept to anyone, though, as Franklin won 70 percent of his games, led a very competent program and consistently ranked Penn State as a No. 2 national championship contender.

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It is also a misinterpretation of the situation.

Because in college sports, only half of what happens has to do with the data in a spreadsheet. The rest is about how people feel.

When you look at the numbers, Penn State almost certainly won’t be able to hire a coach whose record or list of accomplishments matches what Franklin has done over the past dozen years. There aren’t many of them in the first place, and the ones who have proven they can do what Franklin couldn’t — we’re talking Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, Dabo Swinney and even Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame — aren’t leaving their current gigs.

But the college football ecosystem, for better or worse, is increasingly driven by vibrations. They affect everything from conference realignment to the continued push for expansion of the College Football Playoff to the level of donor involvement in funding a roster that can compete for titles.

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Overall, the results were excellent at Penn State. The atmosphere was terrible.

And for Kraft, the bet is that trading Franklin — even for someone who may be less proven — will be a mood changer.

The strategy is not risk-free. Without an obvious savior-level hire like Urban Meyer going to Florida in 2005 or Alabama luring Nick Saban from the NFL in 2007, Penn State’s calculus in firing Franklin at this point is reminiscent of Indiana basketball’s frustration over Tom Crean continually slamming his head into a Sweet 16 ceiling and then firing him the next time he had a bad season.

Indiana is now on its third attempt at just recapturing the level of year-in, year-out competency that Crean brought to the table, let alone trying to break through to a Final Four.

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No matter who Penn State hires, there will be an immediate outburst of excitement just because it’s something different. Beyond that? There are no guarantees.

Kraft, an Indiana alum whose future at Penn State will depend directly on the outcome of this hire, likely understands the inherent long-term risk that comes with firing a successful coach.

But do the fans who are counting on Kraft to deliver someone they consider a clear upgrade?

That’s the tricky part.

People familiar with the way Kraft operates expect him to make some big changes because he truly believes he has one of the best jobs in the country to offer.

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But realistically, no one should expect Dan Lanning to leave Oregon, or Freeman to leave Notre Dame. Mike Elko of Texas A&M, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, is more plausible, except for the fact that there will only be one winner in a bidding war with the Aggies and it won’t be the one on the other side.

Even chasing Indiana’s Curt Cignetti – the most popular name right now – can be tricky. Not only will Indiana do everything it can to ensure he spends the rest of his career in Bloomington, the Hoosiers look like a team that could be playing in a CFP semifinal on Jan. 8 or 9.

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It will be critical for Penn State or any program to have their coach in place by the time the transfer portal opens on January 2.

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Which brings us back to the atmospheric question and the interesting case of Matt Rhule.

Rhule, in his junior year at Nebraska, spent his high school years in State College and walked on to the Penn State football team. It is also well documented that Kraft was his athletic director at Temple, and their friendship goes well beyond the typical athletic director-coach dynamic.

On the one hand, Rhule has now proven three times that he is an elite program builder. He is responsible for two of the three 10-win seasons in Temple football history. He took Baylor from the fallout of the scandal to the Sugar Bowl in his third season. And while Nebraska hasn’t fully broken through yet, it’s 5-1 this year and appears to be trending upward.

But without the context of why Rhule’s 2-23 record against top-25 teams is different than Franklin’s struggles against elite competition, Kraft would have to justify why he spent tens of millions to replace a winning coach with one who hasn’t been as successful.

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Even if the answer is simply that Kraft believes in the intangibles Rhule brings, he should remember that his constituents’ opinion of the appointment — whether it’s fair or not — will determine whether he can achieve the change in atmosphere that Frankling’s firing should have accomplished.

Hey, nobody said this was easy.

Penn State’s search could and should go further than just the handful of obvious names linked to the job, such as Cignetti, Rhule and Elko.

If there’s one thing everyone in college football can agree on, it’s that the sport is on the cusp of a potentially apocalyptic cycle of coaching changes. If courses like Florida, Florida State, Wisconsin, Auburn and Kentucky open up to join Virginia Tech, UCLA, Oklahoma State and Arkansas, there will be a huge domino effect of not necessarily just assistants or Group of Five head coaches being pulled up the ladder.

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That’s great news for the likes of Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin, Washington’s Jedd Fisch, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell, Duke’s Manny Diaz and Georgia Tech’s Brent Key, who are currently in good shape but will also have interesting options to consider.

This could also be a year where we see what is known in the coaching industry as “resetting the clock.” That essentially means a coach can choose to leave for a year or two before he or she is in the right place and can make a fresh start with a new fan base.

That group could include Southern Cal’s Lincoln Riley, LSU’s Brian Kelly, South Carolina’s Shane Beamer and even Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, who is the toast of the town after wins over Georgia, Vanderbilt and Missouri but is just a two-game losing streak away from a new fan base.

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Given the amount of work before he has to make a hire, preferably in early December, Kraft should probably check all those names before focusing on one candidate.

But the idea that Penn State can improve its coaching situation isn’t as clear-cut as Kraft’s quick and decisive action Sunday might lead fans to believe.

It’s very likely that Franklin will be replaced by someone with a weaker resume, but if the next coach can fix the vibe problem that seemed to linger throughout the program once it reached a clear plateau, Penn State will consider it’s $49 million in buyout money money well spent.