WVU HC Rich Rodriguez Comments on Penn State Firing James Franklin

Not everybody is in favor of Penn State firing James Franklin and WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez appears to be among those against it.

Although Rodriguez didn’t directly criticize Penn State during his radio show on Monday night, he did say he doesn’t know if, generally speaking, midseason firings “send the right message.”

“I don’t know if it sends the right message to your team that you kind of gave up on your team,” Rodriguez said. “It’s not even halfway through the season.”

Rodriguez also said that there’s “less patience” around college football coaches anymore in the modern age, a statement most would agree with.

Franklin wasn’t the only coach to get the pink slip this weekend.

Oregon State’s Trent Bray and UAB’s Trent Dilfer were also fired.

But Franklin’s dismissal after 11.5 seasons is by far the biggest story.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Rodriguez can somewhat relate to Franklin, since he has been fired before, twice. The first one was at Michigan(2011), the second at Arizona (2018). The Michigan experience is probably most similar to Franklin’s current one, since Michigan, like Penn State, is a historic Big Ten program. The difference is that Michigan didn’t fire Rodriguez until after the season.

Interestingly enough, Penn State was among the schools that helped Michigan make that decision. With Michigan at 5-2 in 2010, it came to Happy Valley to face a 4-3 Penn State team.

Penn State won, 41-31. Michigan ended up finishing 7-6 and making a change.

This story initially appeared on our partner site Nittany Sports Now.