James Franklin's resume speaks for itself. The Penn State head coach has many years of experience and success coaching at the collegiate level.
Franklin has been in coaching for 30 years, and has 125 wins under his belt in his near 15 years as a head coach. With Penn State, Franklin has generated over 100 wins as he prepares for his 11th season.
However, the big missing component is a national championship. Franklin led the Nittany Lions to a Big Ten Championship in 2016, but haven't won another since, and a national championship has continued to elude Penn State.
What is James Franklin Like as a Coach?
Franklin has developed the reputation to be able to lead a great football team, but never the ability to finish a season by winning the big games. However, it feels like 2025 could be the year for the veteran head coach.
Franklin's put together one of the best staffs he's ever had, and Penn State seems to have one of the most talented rosters in the country.
"He's done a great job of hiring people, he does a great job of developing those people in those positions and he lets them do their jobs," offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki said (h/t SI.com). "But if he feels like he wants something done differently, he's going to communicate that."
James Franklin has the most talented team he’s ever had at Penn State. A roster that, for the first time, is truly considered one of the best in the country.
— Connor Griffin (@RealCGriff) August 23, 2025
My take on Franklin and the extreme pressure to get over the hump heading into this year #WeAre pic.twitter.com/X4p0pHZVtl
Franklin spent over 15 years in various assistant coaching roles, so he knows what it's like. Now that he's a head coach, rather than looking over his coaches shoulders, he puts his trust in them.
"He trusts me to do my job. He doesn’t go in my office and say, 'This is what we should install today,' or, 'This is who we should get the ball to and why.' ... He doesn't come into the staff meeting and run it," Kotelnicki said (h/t SI.com). "He comes in and watches with us a lot, but he doesn’t take the remote from my hand and run it. A micromanager would do that."
Rather than micromanaging his staff, Franklin is focused on the collaboration of the staff he built and observing how they work together.
"I call it managing by walking around. Which means, he's always showing up in your meetings or walking through the building. And not in a micromanager kind of way," defensive coordinator Jim Knowles said (h/t SI.com). "He's just very observant, very organized, but also willing to listen, which I think is unique. He's very collaborative and very interested, moreso than any head coach I've been around, in feedback.
"And not just from me; with everyone in the organization. He's interested in our opinions, our observations. I think that's kind of the cornerstone of who he is."
Knowles has been coaching for even longer than Franklin, starting in 1988 at Cornell. Penn State's new defensive coordinator has been around many different head coaches across the seven different universities he's coaches at.
However, Franklin's listening interest and collaboration efforts with his assistants seem to be different than Knowles has ever been around.
Dan Rainville / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
While Franklin focuses on listening and collaboration with his veteran coaches, he also plays a mentor role with his younger coaches.
"He's very demanding in terms of attention to detail and all that. But when people are very demanding, you know that they're a good human being and that they care about you," 34-year-old quarterback's coach Danny O'Brien said (h/t SI.com). "It's made me a lot better as a coach. He may not know this, but those are all full-circle moments for me.
"They make me happy, because a long time ago, I was the one sitting in the chair, and he was presenting to me."
Penn State's defensive line coach Deion Barnes is only 29 years old. But, he played under Franklin in 2014 and the head coach brought him on as a graduate assistant in 2020. Now, Barnes is entering his third year of coaching at Penn State.
Then there's associate head coach Terry Smith, who's been at Penn State since before Franklin even arrived. However, Smith has seen Franklin's coaching style over the years and the work he puts in.
1 More Saturday...Whatever It Takes...1-0 #WeAre pic.twitter.com/oU1dY49B7C
— James Franklin (@coachjfranklin) August 23, 2025
Franklin may not have brought a national championship to Happy Valley yet, or won the Big Ten since 2016, but he's brought Penn State Nittany Lion football back to the light.
Maybe 2025 will be the year for Franklin and his staff to finally make it back to the top of the college football mountain.
"We want nothing more than to win this championship for him," Smith said (h/t SI.com). "He deserves it. He's worked hard at it. He has built our process. We come from a dark place when we started here. But we've stepped into the light, and he's made Penn State shine again."