The Josh Innes Show - James Franklin Boning PSU Is So Choice...

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

I love, love, love the story about James Franklin taking recruits from PSU. We can debate if James Franklin was screwed over by Penn State. There is a case to be made that he was. There is a case to be made that he needed to go. But, he clearly feels slighted and I totally get it. That said, his recruiting class and subtle jabs at PSU are next level and awesome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and it's got to be like the greatest feeling right but every time I've left somewhere like it never worked out like I've never been back to Philadelphia right so like if WIP fired me and then the next day I'm hired by 97 5 or something like I never got the chance to stick it to anybody and most places I've either left or only had one job in one place like Houston's the only place that I had multiple jobs and I guess I could have stuck it to 610 but it's not like 6-10 fired me. Although, like, I convinced myself, like, oh, they chose rich lord over me because you have to, like, put your mind in that, right? So, like, you convince yourself to leave by saying, well, you guys could have had me, but you chose to stick with rich over me, even though it wasn't true.

I mean, they offered me a nice contract, and I could have stayed, and I stayed within the company, but I went to Philadelphia, you know, and that's just how it was. But it's not like I was on another station in Nashville, and they didn't fire me in Nashville. They fired me in St. Louis, but there was nowhere else to go in St. Louis, so I couldn't stick it to them. and it's not like I can stick it to anybody anywhere else. So I've never had the true opportunity to go in and be like, hey, watch this shit. This will teach them. I guess you could argue

that I've had the opportunity just to go anywhere and be successful and that would stick it to anybody who fired me, I guess. But like Philadelphia, it's way, like basically St. Louis is the only place that I think I've been close enough to or like it's recent enough where if I went somewhere and was successful it can kind of be like, hey, fuck you.

But other than that, it really hasn't existed. But I bring this up because people are talking about James Franklin being petty and they're kind of shitting on him for taking the Virginia Tech or Virginia Tech taking some of the recruits from Penn State. They're like it's kind of a classless move. Bullshit, they shouldn't fire the guy, right? Let's get into that after these words. Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on Select Nights, now through January 3rd.

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which included 11 Penn State flips, all right? The last two weeks have been full speed sprint for James Franklin at Virginia Tech. The former Penn State coach still hasn't assembled an on-field staff, and with only a skeleton group of support staffers in the building, he's been grinding, recruiting nonstop hosting visitors and constructing a class almost entirely from zero. The payoff has been one of the most stunning turnarounds in recent recruiting memory. Franklin has lifted a class that was once at number 124 in the 24-7 sports composite team

recruiting rankings all the way to number 22 as night fell Wednesday, which was the first day of the three-day early signing period. Now, first thing, I do not buy any of these rankings. Now, do the people that make these rankings know more about these random high school dudes than I do? Sure, I couldn't tell you a thing about one dude that plays high school football other than what we hear about from some of these outlets and everything else. Obviously, none of us know any of this shit.

Like, there's dudes, and it must be a weird profession. If you think it's weird to be a coach that has to go out and convince some 14-year-old to come play for him or 15-year-old or tell some 17-year-old kid you're going to give him, you know, a million dollars a year because you think he's a god. If you think that's emasculating and weird, imagine being a guy who's not a coach making $10 million a year who has to basically stalk high school football players and find out where they're going to go to school and find out all the information about them. Again, you think it's weird to be the coach that's getting paid $10 million. I can convince myself to be some weirdo that's stalking.

high school kids for that. I don't know if I could convince myself that it's worth it to make 40 grand a year to be some recruiting expert on a fucking rival side or whatever. But hey, to each their own, whatever you're into. But the question people are asking is, how was James Franklin able to take the number 124 recruiting class and make it number 22 in such a short period of time? Well, the answer is he was able to land 11 dudes that were already committed to go to Penn State. It's been a scramble, Franklin told CBS Sports on Wednesday. Some of these coaches that took some of these jobs around the country and none of the recruits decommitted. One of the coaches I saw landed his plane and the number one recruit in the country was waiting for him there.

I would imagine that would have had to have been referring to my man, Lane Kiffin. If you didn't know already, that coach is Lane Kiffin, he ditched playoff-bound Ole Miss for LSU on Sunday and was welcome to the Tigers facility by defensive lineman commit Lamar Brown, who is not quite the nation's number one recruit, but the number one recruit. number four overall recruit, so it's close enough. Meanwhile, the chaos in Blacksburg has worked in Franklin's favor. Cast aside by Penn State on October 12th after three straight losses, including collapses, three touchdown favorites against UCLA and Northwestern, Franklin has capitalized

on the market. He said he hosted 17 recruits last weekend alone. The results speak loudly. Franklin has flipped 10 Penn State commits to Virginia Tech, sinking the Nittany Lions class to number 150 in the rankings. spot below FCS, South Dakota State. 23 players have decommitted from Penn State since Franklin's firing, leaving only two signees in the class of 2026.

Imagine those guys. Just like, we're still here, guys. 11 of those decommits reunited with Franklin at Virginia Tech, including four-star linebacker Terry Wiggins, who flipped Wednesday. People are saying, oh, well, Franklin's flipping all these recruits, Franklin said. Well, it's the kids that I know and have relationships with. It has nothing to do with a previous school. It has nothing to do with hurt feelings or any of those types of things.

They're the players I know. They're the players I have a longstanding relationship with. And although they committed for the academics and the school, it's also about the relationship with the head coach. First of all, Jimmy, they ain't committing because of the academics or the school. They don't give two fucks about the academics or the school. They're committing for football. That's why they went to Penn State and that's where they're going to go to Virginia Tech. Ain't nobody sitting there like, well, you know, I decided to go to Penn State because I love the

agriculture department. Nobody gives a shit, bro. They're there to play football and they're probably getting paid. I'm all in it, though. I'm all for James Franklin. I'm not some James Franklin Stan or anything like that. Someone that's going to blow James Franklin or some diehard fan of James Franklin. But I love when dudes who seemingly get fucked by somebody are able to step up and fuck them right back.

Now, you can argue maybe Penn State didn't fuck the guy, right? You can make that argument. Like, you had lost three straight games and you never really got them over the hump. But I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Ain't nobody going to get Penn State over the hump. That's not to say that Penn State couldn't upset Ohio State in a down year, Michigan in a down year, and make it to the college football playoff again. Like, that's possible.

And maybe they could even win a national championship. I'm not saying it's impossible for them to do it. So when I say they're not going to get over the hump, I don't even know what the hump is. Like, if you're Penn State, what is the hump? Like, at LSU, we know it's winning championships and trying to win multiple championships, right? I don't know. Like, is the hump just consistently winning 10 games at Penn State? don't know. So when I say getting over the hump, I don't know what it is. Therefore,

it's hard for me to say, like, they'll get over the hump. So I don't think anybody ever will. But James Franklin seemed like a decent enough guy, seemed like a very good recruiter. And the guys liked him. He's a very likable guy. When you see him, he exudes a likability. Like, I genuinely look at the guy and like him. I don't know that you can say whether or not you think he got fucked or not. I think Penn State, you can tell based on the fact that now they have the number 130 recruiting class behind South Dakota State. and the fact that nobody wants the job, that maybe they kind of fuck the guy, and it's fun to watch them flounder, right? Like, you fired a guy on October 12th. You were the first school to fire a guy.

And now you still can't find a guy. The coach at BYU is like, no, I'm good. The defensive coordinator at Ohio State's like, guess what? I'm going to go down to South Florida. Like, this is the situation you've put yourself in. So whether or not you like James Franklin or not, I enjoy a good story about a guy who seemingly got fucked and in his mind, you know he did get fucked. You can debate it and say whether or not they should have

kept him or not. But they fired him early and they fired him early in an attempt to get ahead of all this. That's why you fire somebody that early. Yet here they are sitting here on the 4th of December. They don't have a coach. Their recruiting class has been decimated and the guy that's decimated that class,

the guy that's pillaged that recruiting class is the guy that is currently the coach at Virginia Tech because you fired him. I don't care who the fuck you are and who the you root for? That's sexiest shit. And it may mean nothing. He might like recruiting classes, schmuting classes. Like, yeah, it sounds great. You get these great recruiting classes. How many of these 30 dudes that you sign are actually worth the shit? How many of them are even going to stay around

for longer than a year? How many of these guys are going to end up at five different schools before it's all said and done, right? Like, I get it. It's a weird world. This doesn't mean anything. But the scoreboard currently is recruiting. It's not the score on the field. Currently in December. if you're a school like Penn State whose season is over, what's the scoreboard? Especially if you're a guy like James Franklin. What's the scoreboard? Well, the most current activity is recruiting. Who is signing, who's going to be, you know, who's getting the top recruiting classes?

And if you're at Virginia Tech, and when you got there, that recruiting class was ranked by these stupid outlets at number 125 or whatever, and now it's number 22, that scoreboard. If that means, basically, that the class at Penn State was probably what, number 20, somewhere around that at Penn State with James Franklin. You pulled most of their dudes and they went to you. So I'm going to guess that that was a large reason why Penn State would have had a higher recruiting class because of those guys. So what you've done now is you've pillaged them.

And that is sexy. Like I love to see a story like that. Like when someone feels like they were slighted or wronged and they're able, it's like pretty woman. It's like the scene in pretty woman when Vivian goes into the store on Rodeo Drive and She's like, I need to get a dress and whatever. And they're like, ma'am, there's nothing for you here. Please leave.

And she's like, all right, fine, I'm getting out of here. And then she takes her hooker, boots out. And she's like, I'm out of here. And this is bullshit. And then she has to explain to the guy that's like the concierge or whatever at the Regent Beverly Wilshire, where she's like, hey, I need to get a dress for dinner tonight. Then she finds the purse that can help her get dressed and whatever. And then she goes back after she gets all the fancy clothes.

And she's like, hey, do you remember me from earlier I came in? And they're like, no, we don't remember you. And she's like, well, you know what? you just made a big mistake, huge. I'm going to go shopping now, right? She goes, you work on commission. And she goes, yes, of course. And she goes, well, you made a big mistake, huge, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

That's James Franklin right now. And on top of that, he's still getting $9 million from Penn State. Now, his buyout is obviously a lot smaller than it would have been had he not gotten the job, right? But he's still taking $9 million from Penn State. It's not like the $60 million or whatever it was that it was initially reported as. But he's getting like $10.000. million, $9, $10 million still from Penn State to essentially bend them over and give them the gravy pipe.

Now, it may mean nothing. He may win nothing. Virginia Tech may be a dud program and maybe James Franklin's a loser that's just never going to win anything. I don't believe that. Like, I think that guy's going to go there and bring some stability and they will be a viable program. Win national championships?

Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. But he's a guy that is able to bend them over and say, basically, you're paying me to fuck you. It's a thing of beauty. It's gorgeous. It's sexy as hell, man. That is sexy as hell to be paid to screw somebody over.

Like, Brian Kelly is going to get paid a lot of money to go away from LSU. Nobody wants to hire Brian Kelly. Like, there are jobs right now that in theory would have made sense for Brian Kelly. Do you think that Michigan State wouldn't have made sense for Brian Kelly? I mean, Notre Dame's basically a big 10 school and he was there for 100 years. Do you think Brian Kelly couldn't have made some sense? and you would have had a school like Michigan State who maybe wouldn't have had to have paid him as much because you've got LSU paying $54 million, so you would just need to pay to kind of offset it. You would think you'd get him cheaper.

That'd be incentive, right? If a school wanted Brian Kelly, they'd have the, they'd be incentivized by the fact that LSU is paying him $54 million, so you'd assuming you'd get a guy maybe motivated on the cheap. Penn State. You want to tell me that Penn State wouldn't make sense for Brian Kelly again? It's a Big Ten school. why wouldn't have that meant why wouldn't that have made sense because no one wants Brian Kelly no one is willing to even bring in Brian Kelly and say well shit LSU's foot in the bill anyway so basically like they're paying us to take him so

whatever like they're paying his salary but you're James Franklin and you're able to bend them over you're able to get paid to fuck them that is I mean that is sexy as hell I'm chubbed up thinking about it good for you James Franklin I'd love to have that opportunity at some point in life. Just to be able to fuck somebody like that. Good news. I love it. More to come.