Booed At Home And A Loss To Northwestern: Penn State Has To Fire James Franklin Now, Right?

They've got some sad times in Happy Valley, and boy, is it probably not fun to be Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin these days.

Calls to can the head coach kicked up after the team lost to Oregon in overtime at home last month. A forgivable loss, if you ignore the Franklin-led Nittany Lions' troubles against ranked teams.

Then, the very next weekend, they lost to UCLA 42-37 in a stunner.

Now this. Losing to Northwestern. Northwestern. At home. With plenty of empty seats in view.

You can understand why Penn State fans may not be thrilled with their head coach, and they certainly let him know it when Franklin was announced before their game against Northwestern even began.

He had to know this was coming. I mean, top-tier college football coaches get paid some great money, but even that kind of cash isn't going to take the sting out of getting booed by a full Beaver Stadium.

Especially when you're the Nittany Lions head coach.

Northwestern came into this game at 3-2, the same record as Penn State.

Now, given the typical pecking order in the Big Ten, most would feel confident thinking that this would be a bounce-back weekend for the Nittany Lions, and it would at least take some heat off Franklin.

Wrong.

The game was pretty close throughout, and with Penn State down 22-21 on 3rd and four, things got even worse when quarterback Drew Allar was forced out of the game with an injury.

That put backup quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer in the unenviable position of being thrown into the game on a do-or-die fourth down and, welp…

Northwestern went on to win this one 22-21 in a shocker… kind of a shocker, I guess.

There's been a lot of talk about Franklin's buyout and how that complicates a coaching change, but at what point does the clear frustration from fans and the glaring lack of on-field success finally make them bite the bullet and go through with it?

It should probably be tomorrow.