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Jake TrotterOct 18, 2025, 12:13 PM ET
- Jake Trotter is simply a elder writer astatine ESPN. Trotter covers assemblage football. He besides writes astir different assemblage sports, including men's and women's basketball. Trotter resides successful the Cleveland country with his woman and 3 kids and is simply a instrumentality of his hometown Oklahoma City Thunder. He covered the Cleveland Browns and NFL for ESPN for 5 years, moving backmost to assemblage shot successful 2024. Previously, Trotter worked for the Middletown (Ohio) Journal, Austin American-Statesman and Oklahoman newspapers earlier joining ESPN successful 2011. He's a 2004 postgraduate of Washington and Lee University. You tin scope retired to Trotter astatine jake.trotter@espn.com and travel him connected X astatine @Jake_Trotter.
James Franklin said helium "can't wait" to manager again connected the heels of Penn State firing him past weekend.
"I don't cognize thing else," Franklin said Saturday during ESPN's "College GameDay." "I've been doing this for 30 years. I don't person hobbies. I don't golf, I don't fish. This has been specified a large portion of my identity, specified a large portion of my family. We emotion it."
Last Sunday, Penn State fto Franklin spell aft an 0-3 commencement successful Big Ten play.
Off past year's quality successful the College Football Playoff semifinals, the Nittany Lions began the twelvemonth ranked No. 2 successful the AP Top 25 preseason pool.
But they mislaid successful treble overtime astatine location to Oregon connected Sept. 27, dropping Franklin to 4-21 astatine Penn State against AP top-10 opponents, including 1-18 against top-10 Big Ten teams successful league games.
Then, with losses to UCLA and Northwestern, Penn State became the archetypal squad since the FBS and FCS divided successful 1978 to suffer consecutive games portion favored by 20 oregon much points successful each game, according to ESPN Research.
Before a squad gathering Sunday afternoon, Penn State diversion manager Pat Kraft told Franklin helium was being fired.
"I was successful shock," Franklin admitted. "I'm inactive moving done it myself. It feels surreal."
Franklin won 104 games and reached double-digit wins six times successful 11 seasons astatine Penn State, including the erstwhile three.
"I had a large tally there," helium said. "Penn State was bully to maine and my family"
Franklin noted that Penn State's expectations skyrocketed during his tenure, particularly this past offseason -- that, successful turn, led to his firing erstwhile it became wide the Nittany Lions wouldn't conscionable them this season.
"We created that pressure," helium said. "That's the happening that I'm astir arrogant of."
Franklin, 53, is inactive owed $49 cardinal from his buyout, the second-largest successful assemblage shot history. He said present that he's looking guardant to achieving what helium couldn't astatine Penn State.
"I thought we were going to triumph a nationalist title there," helium said. "We were close. That extremity hasn't changed. We're conscionable going to spell triumph a nationalist title determination other now."
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