{"id":658017,"date":"2026-05-22T07:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T07:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/658017\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T07:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T07:22:09","slug":"the-penn-state-nittany-lions-football-team-is-said-to-be-consumed-with-winning-the-james-franklin-breakup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/658017\/","title":{"rendered":"The Penn State Nittany Lions football team is said to be consumed with winning the James Franklin breakup"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Penn State Nittany Lions football team is said to be consumed with winning the James Franklin breakup<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A burning question that CBS Sports\u2019 Chip Patterson<\/a> feels will define the Penn State Nittany Lions<\/a>\u2019 2026 season in its first year post-James Franklin: \u201cIs Penn State better off with Matt Campbell?\u201d Franklin, of course, was hired by the Virginia Tech Hokies<\/a> in November following an October 2025 firing from State College. He was replaced by former Iowa State Cyclones head coach Matt Campbell<\/a> in early December.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Per Patterson, \u201cPerhaps changing the voice in the room and re-arranging the house will have Penn State renewed with the same kind of energy that powered Franklin’s ascent to winning the Big Ten in Year 3 on the job. But as Franklin himself feels renewed with a new opportunity nearby at Virginia Tech, Penn State will be looking for reasons to believe that it’s in a better place now with Campbell at the helm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virginia Tech is investing over $229 million into athletics<\/a> in the coming years. The overwhelming majority of that is sure to go to Franklin after he signed a five-year, $41.75 million contract<\/a> to be the head coach. The Hokies will soon be a factor in the ACC, which could need a new challenger to the Miami Hurricanes<\/a> soon, with Dabo Swinney and Mike Norvell past their primes with the Clemson Tigers<\/a> and Florida State Seminoles, respectively.<\/p>\n

It might not be the smartest move to try to stack up to Virginia Tech as it begins its ascension to relevancy. Especially when Penn State is entering the fall hoping that Campbell\u2019s pieces from Iowa State will help propel the team to the recruiting heights Franklin had them at.<\/p>\n

Penn State is hoping top-5 transfer class carries the load<\/p>\n

Whenever you lose 46 players to the portal like the Nittany Lions just did, there are naturally questions about the health of the program. Luckily, Penn State is bringing in a top-five portal class.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Six blue-chip transfers will be gracing Happy Valley this coming season, including former Cyclones quarterback Rocco Becht, who had 9,274 passing yards and 64 passing touchdowns during his time in Ames.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a good chance it works, though there\u2019s equally a chance of growing pains for what\u2019s essentially a brand-new roster. In the Big Ten, Campbell\u2019s road is tougher than Franklin\u2019s in the ACC.<\/p>\n

So maybe the Hokies shouldn\u2019t be the measuring stick, and Franlin\u2019s ghost shouldn\u2019t be chased as the Nittany Lions enter a new era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Penn State Nittany Lions football team is said to be consumed with winning the James Franklin breakup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1771,8940,399,9078,13418,168552,7186,398,396,397,69005,8392,5694,99,211071,1339,1772],"class_list":["post-658017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-clemson-tigers","tag-florida-state-seminoles","tag-football","tag-franklin","tag-iowa-state-cyclones","tag-matt-campbell","tag-miami-hurricanes","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-nittany-lions","tag-penn-state","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-sports","tag-state-college","tag-virginia-tech","tag-virginia-tech-hokies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}