The Penn State Nittany Lions nation is in full emotional twister mode. Matt Campbell takes the head coaching throne, and Terry Smith gets iced out. Just as fans were preparing to pop the confetti in honor of the new coach, Franklin showed up like the ultimate party crasher. He swiped yet another coach out of town.

“BREAKING: James Franklin is hiring Penn State QB coach Danny O’Brien for the same role at Virginia Tech. Interesting hire by CJF!” tweeted Penn State insider Dylan Dawson on December 9. 

Danny O’Brien is just tracing the Franklin blueprint at this point. Honestly, everyone saw it coming. Their bond runs deep: O’Brien played for him at Maryland Terrapins, broke into coaching at Penn State in 2021, and Franklin’s been hyping him up as a rising star every chance he got. 

“I recruited him, I went to his home, I went to his high school,” Franklin said in 2023. “There’s a trust there personally, and there’s a trust there professionally.

How are the Nittany Lions’ fans feeling at the moment about O’Brien’s exit? The reaction is one of celebration, despite the numbers screaming otherwise. A chunk of Penn State fans have turned on Drew Allar, claiming O’Brien held him back. But the 2024 stats disagree. 

Franklin’s quarterback finished third in Big Ten passing yards, cracked the top four in QBR and touchdowns, and posted the second-best completion percentage ever at Penn State, along with the third-highest single-season yardage. So O’Brien is not exactly ‘bad coaching’ material. 

The former Penn State head coach brought O’Brien on as an offensive analyst in 2021 and eventually bumped him up to quarterbacks coach in 2024. He stepped into the role Mike Yurcich left behind after his late-2023 exit.

O’Brien’s worked with everyone from Sean Clifford to Drew Allar to Ethan Grunkemeyer, and Franklin spent five straight years branding him a ‘rising star’ and future offensive-coordinator-in-the-making. At one point, O’Brien even lived in the apartment above Franklin’s garage, which is quite an achievement in terms of being in the inner circle.

This season, he was spinning plates nonstop. A derailed campaign (6-6), Franklin bolting, four-star quarterback Troy Huhn decommitting, and his own future hanging in limbo. After being apart from Franklin for a few days, he will be reuniting with the Hokies squad.

It’s a pretty clear signal that Matt Campbell may import his quarterbacks coach from Iowa State. Jake Waters has coached Rocco Becht for the past two years and logged five seasons on Campbell’s staff overall. Before that, he slung it himself at Kansas State.

Meanwhile, kudos to Franklin, who is in no mood to stop stirring the pot. The news dropped barely 24 hours after he pulled off another heist from his former staff.

James Franklin taps familiar faces for his Virginia Tech chapter

Franklin reached back into his Penn State pipeline, tapping former assistant Ty Howle as Virginia Tech’s offensive coordinator on December 9, per multiple reports. Howle joined Franklin in 2020 as an analyst and previously played offensive line for Penn State from 2009 to 2013.

At the exact moment, Franklin leaned hard on his familiar connections. CBS Sports reports that ex-Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry, dismissed earlier this year after a shaky stint capped by a loss to Old Dominion, is returning to Blacksburg as Franklin’s defensive coordinator. Pry previously engineered some of Penn State’s most formidable, most respected defenses under him.

Everyone anticipated that some Penn State recruits would follow Franklin to Blacksburg. However, the early signing period revealed the full extent of the damage. 11 former Nittany Lion commits defected to Virginia Tech. The crown jewel of the bunch is four-star running back Messiah Mickens, the No. 17 back in 2026 and a top-10 player in Pennsylvania.

Campbell has every reason to be annoyed by Franklin’s behind-the-scenes swoops, but he’s keeping his focus positive.

“For Coach (James) Franklin and what he built here at Penn State, I have the utmost respect for him,” the new head coach said about his predecessor during the introductory speech.

It’s been just 24 hours since Matt Campbell took the reins. Now the real test begins: how well he can manage the fallout and keep James Franklin at arm’s length.