The Josh Innes Show - James Franklin Does It Again

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

It was a great weekend of college football. First off, LSU can suck it. The Nuss Buss has crashed. Sam Pittman was fired at Arkansas. James Franklin loses another big game. That said, is there anyone who could do better at Penn State? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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price you want, so your business can stay unstoppable. Learn more at sap.com slash uncertainty. All right, let's see. Boy, I am fucking beat, man. Like, I stayed up late watching that game last night. And it's like, I, like, Saturday night, I wasn't all that hammered when I was watching the sports matches, mostly because, like, LSU pissed me off to the point that I was so pissed off.

Like, you ever get to a point that you're so pissed that the alcohol can't get you hammered? Well, that's what the LSU game was for me on Saturday. Those fucking bums, bums. You know, it was a bum? Garrett Nussmeyer. What a bum that dude is. You know, also bum Brian fucking Kelly and your bum-ass offense. And that's the thing about college football. Going into the year, it was, oh, this big year of awesome quarterback play.

And there's Garrett Nussmeier, who's a favorite for the highest man. And if he doesn't want it, there's Cade Clubnik. Oh, there's Arch Manning, who's going to be God's Gift, or DJ Lagway. And they all fucking suck. Not one of them have you gone, oh, that guy's playing well. Not one of them. There's varying levels. There's like Nussmeyer, who allegedly has been hurt.

But, like, Nuss Myers played like shit, but I wouldn't say he sucks. Then there's, like, DJ Lagway, who's been flat out dog shit at Florida. But, boy, let me play a couple commercials and we'll continue. This episode is brought to by Tron Aries. For the first time, the captivating world of Tron breaks out of the grid. Aries, a highly advanced program, journeys into our world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind's first encounter with AI beings, Featuring an electrifying original soundtrack by 9-inch nails.

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But you let a dude named Trinidad just beat the shit out of you. Fucking LSU. And now I look like a dumb ass because I got this LSU flag waving outside of my house. There is nothing worse than showing your colors and then they embarrass you because you know people are driving by and they pity you. either pittering you or they're mocking you and that's the worst the worst is like knowing that like because i do it like when you see a not like a team that's not you you usually see in a city right so like let's say that like i don't know there's like an astros flag in detroit where there's not a lot of astros flags it's like if you drove by that you go boy those poor fucking losers they miss the playoffs for the first time in like nine years holy shit well that's how i imagine people look at my house when they drive by and they see an lSU flag waving they're like oh this poor bastard they just got worked by Ole Miss. Oh, and they thought Garrett Nussmeyer was the truth. They thought Garrett Nussmeier was the next great LSU quarterback to win a Heisman. Well, bullshit he ain't. I mean, I talk about how shitty the Eagles offense is. The LSU offense is anemic. It is gross to watch. It

fucking sucks, which is wild because the LSU offense was dominant a year ago. Like, every year under Brian Kelly, the one thing that's held up is the offense. The defense has been sketch. sketch of shit. But you watch them offensively, and they are just beasts offensively. This offense is trash. Oh, somebody's just jealous because they got ran out of Baton Rouge 15 years ago. Yep, that's it. Philly Logic shitheads.

That's exactly what it is. I'm jealous. Fucking LSU, dreadful to watch offensively. Like, it's the kind of bad offensively that, like, you don't even want to watch the game. Like, losing is losing. Like, if you lose a game, you'll lose a game. But watching a team be inept at something is difficult. Like all those years of watching LSU the last couple of years under Brian Kelly being

dreadful defensively, it's painful to watch. Shit, I think I'd rather watch a team that gives up 40 a game but can score with them than watch a team that can't stop people but can't do anything offensively. Jesus. I mean, they are brutal, brutal to watch. And God, I fucking hate Ole Miss and I hate fucking Lane Kiffin. and like, I liked Lane Kiffin back when he was, like, drunk and bloated. I was watching the Lane Kiffin documentary, and now he's all skinny.

He looks weird as a sober skinny guy. I prefer my Lane Kiffin to be bloated and drunk. That's the Lane Kiffin I want. Not super skinny, hot yoga guy, Lane Kiffin. Other college football stuff, though, I guess Bama's back as they went out and beat up on Georgia. But George is interesting because I've never felt good about Georgia at all. I couldn't name any of their playmakers. There's nothing special about them.

Gunner Stockton, like, there's nothing special about them. Congrats on rallying to beat Tennessee. You did it. Congrats. But you kind of saw from Tennessee. This is a dumb question. I can't believe I don't remember this. The Vols ended up winning this weekend, didn't they?

I believe they did. They did, but they had a hell of a fucking tough time doing so against Mississippi State. It went to overtime. That's what happened in that game. Hell of a tough time doing it against Mississippi State. But I actually love watching Tennessee. Like offensively, I like watching Joey Aguilar just sling it. Like, it is amazing to think how bad Nico yami-a-blah-blah was.

It's amazing to think of how terrible he was at quarterback for that offense to not go because it is like a cut and paste plug-and-play office. You can throw any asshole in there that's even competent they're going to throw for 300 yards a game because it's just that offense. The offense is beautiful in that way. I love watching them play. Tennessee can sling it with anybody. Tennessee is solid.

I like watching them play. First true road game of the year. Actually, first actual road game of the year. And they got the win over Mississippi State who can play a little ball, but good for Tennessee. Not a shocker here. Stop me if you've heard this before. But James Franklin loses a big game. But what was the shocker is that it became a game.

So Saturday night, I'm like passing out on the couch, not from booze, but because I don't sleep during the week. So it usually hits me. Like Friday and Saturday, I'm fucking dead. Like my three hours of sleep, I can survive Monday. days, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, because I'm still kind of living off the sleep that I got on Saturday and Friday and Saturday nights. I can kind of live off of that. But like Saturday night, it's late. I'm kind of falling asleep. I had a big bed on Oregon to win. And they were a four and a half point underdog. So it was a money line playing. It was a thing of beauty. And as I'm dozing off,

jilly's getting all pissed off. She constantly gets pissed when I doze off because I lie to her and say I'm not dozing off. Like my beer, I'm like, damn, you're spilling my beer. It's like falling out of my hand because I'm just fucking tired. Like I get up, I do this podcast, I wake up at 3.45 in the morning, but I don't go to sleep until midnight usually, especially on nights that there's nighttime football. So it's a fucking mess for me, right? So we're sitting on the couch and I'm kind of dozing off. And I kind of look up at the TV and I see that, oh, it looks like it's a, you know,

it's a 10 point game or 14 point game. Like Oregon's got this thing locked up. I think it was 17 to 3. And then I'll doze and then boom, I'll wake up and it's 17 to 10. Then I doze and it's 17, 17. and then it's in overtime, and I'm like, shit. Fortunately, Oregon got the dub, and their old coked out coach, Dan Lannning just looked like a psycho after the game.

But good for him, dude, that's a big win. James Franklin is a bridesmaid. He is not a bride. But what's interesting about James Franklin, right? Like, you can sit there at Penn State, and you can bitch if you're a Penn State Nittany Lion supporter, and you can say, fuck this guy, get us somebody else. It's weird because in no way would I ever consider firing James

Franklin. Like, they're just, they're going to be programs that are better than yours. This isn't 1965, 1970, and Captain Overlooking Dittleman over here, fucking Paterno, like, it doesn't work that way anymore, the way sports used to be. So you've got to compete with big money programs who are spending big money in the portal, and you've got to find people who are willing to do that for you. And I don't believe they're losing these games because James Franklin is a shitty coach. You want to know why they're losing games like this? Because you're Drew Aller is dog shit. Maybe that's it. Like, I'm so tired of hearing about

Drew fucking Aller. Like, spare me on Drew Aller. My God, Drew Aller at Penn State. You're talking about shitty offenses. Penn State's offense is shitty, and Drew Aller is one of the main reasons. And they wear dull fucking uniforms. Get some better uniforms. Get better looking uniforms and get a

quarterback, and maybe you can win big games like this. But, like, I actually like James Franklin. Like, I have nothing against the guy, right? And like, why would you fire? I'm like, I understand why Arkansas fired Sam Pittman. Like, you can't go on living the way you're living. Arkansas is never going to be a title contender. Maybe in this new era of college football, they're closer than they used to be.

But Arkansas is never going to be one of that. I mean, they got tons of cash. But Arkansas is really never going to be, you know, an Alabama, a Florida, an LSU, an Ohio State, a Bama, a Georgia. That will never be Arkansas. but Arkansas should not be a program that every week they roll out of bed and lose by 30. That's why it was inevitable. Like Sam Pittman against Notre Dame this weekend, like you knew it was over watching them just get eviscerated.

And you knew that it was over when they were getting blown out and every other. You knew it was over when they blew a game for two weeks in a row fumbling going in to take the lead late in games. You knew it was over. Arkansas will never be a consistent 11, 12 win team. But Arkansas shouldn't be 5 and 7 and 4 and 8 every year either. So you knew that Homeboy was going to go. You're not going to get much better than the results you get from James Franklin at Penn State. The guy's going to win 10, 11 games every year for you.

You play in the Big Ten that's very top-heavy. So you're going to get you, you're going to get Ohio State and Michigan. And outside of that, you might see one team rise up here, one team fall this year, but you're part of the elite two or three teams there. And it sucks that you lose that game. And now Oregon, because Oregon's in the Big Ten. And it sucks that you lose that game. But I think James Franklin's fine.

Like, we're so quick to want to fire people. Who are you going to hire and how much better do you think they can do? And in the era of the playoff and what's going to be an expanded playoff, James Franklin's going to get you into the playoffs pretty consistently. So I'm well aware that he doesn't beat top 10 teams and I get all that. But I think I can live with what he does. You know, last year, you win 13 games. games overall. And you go to the college football

playoff. You can live with that. You know, they had some down years early in James Franklin. They were kind of an up and down team. Last three years, you're a 10 plus win team. Rose Bowl, Peach Bowl, college football playoff. Right? So, like, how much better are you going to do? Unless you're Nick Sabin,

you're probably not winning titles every year. And in this case of Penn State, you're not winning them at all. But let's say you get 10 wins every year, 11 wins, and you're a college football playoff contender. You're not going to get much better than that. Here's what James Franklin needs to do. James Franklin needs to go out and find a fucking quarterback. You know, you look at Michigan, they paid all this money to get Bryce Underwood.

Maybe he's great. Maybe he'll be a disaster. Maybe he'll just be okay. But they got him. Texas goes out and gets Archmanning. Like, you look at these schools and look at the quarterbacks they're signing, and you've got Drew fucking Aller. Get somebody that doesn't look like a big 10 quarterback of 1980.

Drew Aller sucks. So go find you someone for the new era of college football and win that way. Like I wouldn't even consider firing James Franklin. Like if I'm LSU, you look at what you're getting out of Brian Kelly. You paid Brian Kelly one of the biggest salaries in America because you need Brian Kelly to win titles. LSU's won, what, three national titles in the last 25 years. The previous three coaches have won national titles. You are paying Brian Kelly to win national titles.

You are not paying Brian Kelly to be, hey, we won nine games, ten games, and maybe we'll sneak into the college football playoff. The money you're spending in the portal and the money you are spending on the coach is not that of a team that can accept what LSU has been doing under Brian Kelly. If you're Penn State, like, you can accept what James Franklin is. I don't know. It's a different world to me. Like, they'd be dumb to fire him. Like, you fire Sam Pittman at Arkansas because they're a joke. And they should be better than a joke.

You don't fire a guy who wins 10, 11 games every year in a new era of college football where everybody is spending money and every school from top to bottom can go out and get talented guys as long as you've got a big enough checkbook. This isn't 1975. This isn't Joe Paul ruling the world and having the most wins of all time. It is a different world. And you would be dumb to fire. Who are you going to replace him with?

So you have that. You had Bama, Georgia. You know, Penn State. They rally but end up losing because Alec throws the pick in overtime. Coach Prime continues to lose. I root for Dion because I've listened to his book and now I like him. So I root for him. But they're a met.

Like the fucking quarterback, they brought in salt or wherever he was from, like whatever small school he's from, he's trash. I guess life's difficult when you don't have your kid out there throwing the ball. Anyway, more to come.