As Penn State fires Mike Yurcich, how much is James Franklin to blame for offense problems?

June 26, 2024

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — We’ve reached a pivotal moment in James Franklin’s Penn State tenure.

Sunday afternoon, with fans still on edge following Penn State’s latest loss to an elite opponent, Franklin fired offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich. Something had to be done when one of the least explosive offenses in college football couldn’t do nearly enough to support a remarkable season from one of the best defenses in the country. Penn State may be 8-2 with a chance at a New Year’s Six bowl, but once again its offense came up woefully short in a big game, this time a 24-15 loss to Michigan in front of the second-largest crowd in Beaver Stadium history.

Penn State has the keys to winning plastered in huge font on the side of the building next to its practice field. One of those keys is explosive plays. With a five-star quarterback recruit, a pair of running backs who were freshman sensations a year ago and a likely top-10 draft pick at left tackle, this year’s Nittany Lions rank 102nd in the FBS in yards per play and dead last in percentage of plays that gain at least 20 yards.

The writing was on the wall for Penn State and Yurcich — literally.

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This pivotal moment means the head coach, the one doing the hiring and firing, the one who decided someone needed to be relieved of their duties after two failures in the two biggest games this season, needs to look long and hard in the mirror before he begins his search.

Franklin isn’t going anywhere. He’s 86-38 with a buyout figure of $64 million, which at the start of this weekend was the fourth largest in the FBS behind Kirby Smart, Jimbo Fisher (who was also fired Sunday) and Brian Kelly. The only way I see Franklin leaving in the next few years is if he buys himself out to go somewhere else. But if Franklin is here for the long haul and is going to be the one to elevate this program, there’s little evidence to suggest much will improve with the offense unless he evaluates his role on that side of the ball.

After 10 years, we’ve seen a large enough sample size to recognize a few truths about Franklin. The man who describes himself as a control freak and whose background is as an offensive coordinator and as a wide receivers coach has struggled to retain coaches for those two positions. It’s become a revolving door, with the next offensive coordinator being Franklin’s sixth since arriving at Penn State in 2014. Of those five previous coordinators, three were fired, Ricky Rahne left to become the head coach of Old Dominion and Joe Moorhead left to become the head coach of Mississippi State. Marques Hagans, meanwhile, is Franklin’s fifth receivers coach at Penn State after being hired last winter when Taylor Stubblefield was fired.

PSU offense vs. defense under Franklin

Year	Offense YPP	Defense YPP	Record	OC
2014	121st	3rd	7-6	Donovan
2015	78th	14th	7-6	Donovan
2016	21st	22nd	11-3	Moorhead
2017	14th	12th	11-2	Moorhead
2018	38th	14th	9-4	Rahne
2019	49th	16th	11-2	Rahne
2020	83rd	22nd	4-5	Ciarrocca
2021	96th	9th	7-6	Yurcich
2022	31st	5th	11-2	Yurcich
2023	102nd	3rd	8-2	Yurcich

The only time this offense has truly succeeded, could stand toe-to-toe with the defense and ranked among the most explosive in the country was under Moorhead in 2016 and ’17. He was also the only coordinator who appeared to have complete control of his unit. Moorhead’s success is what likely gave him that leeway. It seems that whenever a Penn State offense starts to struggle, that’s when too many cooks might be entering the kitchen.

During practices, Franklin is always involved with the offense, which makes sense given his background. On the far side of the field, defensive coordinator Manny Diaz — or Brent Pry or Bob Shoop before him — runs his portion of practice. The Yurcich offense at Penn State did not look like the same one he was running at Oklahoma State. When asked about that last month, Yurcich said his offense here was “much different.”

“It’s a lot of groupthink,” Yurcich said. “Our whole staff, it’s very shared responsibility-wise. Nobody cares who gets the credit. We’re just continuing brain trust in that room. We got great assistant coaches. We got great analysts. Great input from our head coach. Just trying to continually develop and see where we can really maximize the personnel that we have.”

Mike Yurcich was fired 10 games into his third season as play-caller. (Matthew O’Haren / USA Today)

If nobody cares who gets the credit, then surely someone needs to take note of who is taking the fall here. Yurcich is the third offensive coordinator fired by Franklin, joining John Donovan and Kirk Ciarrocca. Donovan had two seasons and Ciarrocca got only one. Franklin had seen enough with Ciarrocca even during the 2020 season that was shortened by COVID-19. He was able to fire him in order to get the guy he really wanted in Yurcich.

Not even three full seasons later, Yurcich’s office is being cleaned out and someone new will be hired. It comes after Stubblefield was fired abruptly last winter in favor of Hagans, whose receivers have struggled to create separation and aid the development of quarterback Drew Allar, who ranks 98th in average yards per pass attempt.

Allar, of course, is the blue-chip quarterback who likely wouldn’t even be here without his relationship with Yurcich. He’ll now have another offensive coordinator to suit up for. How Allar fits into all this after losing the person he was closest to on staff will undoubtedly come into focus in the coming weeks.

Running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider and tight ends coach Ty Howle will serve as the interim co-offensive coordinators for the remainder of the season, with Rutgers, Michigan State and a bowl opponent remaining. How such a role will work with two coaches will surely be one of many topics of conversation Monday when Franklin next meets with reporters. Typically Howle has been up in the booth, which is where Yurcich was calling games this season. Seider is always on the sideline.

Perhaps this is an audition for both, the veteran coach in Seider, who grinded his way through high school gigs before breaking into college ball, and Howle, a longtime high school coach’s son who returned to Penn State, his alma mater, in 2020 as an analyst. He was elevated to tight ends coach in 2021.

Both want to rise through the profession. Both have been around Franklin long enough to understand him and the demands he puts on those around him. Seider said candidly earlier this season that he still has head coaching aspirations and that he’s turned down other opportunities in the past because of what Penn State has built and because he enjoys working with and learning from Franklin.

“If Penn State’s the last place I go and I finish my career, I’m OK with that because it’s been a hell of a ride,” Seider said in October. “I still got quite a few years in front of me. It’d have to make a lot of sense for me to leave this place. There have been opportunities, but like I said, we can win it all here at Penn State.”

Franklin is the CEO of this program. He needs to reflect on how he’s handled all of this. The instability on offense has been a constant for much of the past decade, while the defense has annually been a top-25 unit. It’s hard to put any offense in a position to succeed when it’s had this many changes. But here Penn State is yet again, entering what feels like a winter rite of passage.

However Penn State proceeds from here, Franklin needs to recognize what’s allowed his program to get to this point and why the offense is repeatedly faltering in the biggest moments. Clearly something needs to change, and that starts with Franklin being honest with himself and his place in all of this.

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(Top photo of James Franklin: Gregory Fisher / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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