When James Franklin signed with the Virginia Tech Hokies, the cascade that followed was diabolical in State College. More than 12 Penn State players, 11 four-star recruits, and a bunch of staffers followed him to Blacksburg. Penn State was left with only two recruits from the class of 2026. According to an anonymous Penn State coach, it was an insider’s job all along.

On January 21, The Basic Blues Nation blog post titled “The Standard Shattered: What Really Happened to Penn State in 2025” dropped a major accusation against former coach James Franklin. As per one of two anonymous Penn State coaches, as soon as or just before Franklin was hired by Virginia Tech, he started playing transfer-portal “tricks.”

“Everybody knew. A couple of days to a week after getting fired. Coach Franklin held a discreet meeting at his home with some current players on the team—young leaders,” James Franklin’s former colleague said.

The story is getting a lot of attention because Franklin might have actually broken the rules by reaching out to his old players and staff before he was actually allowed to.

He reportedly met with groups of 8 to 15 current players and told them straight up, “I need you to follow me.” He pulled the same move with his old coaching staff. To back it up, the mysterious coach said:

“That Thanksgiving photo Franklin took at VT with all the ex-PSU staff members? That was most of his immediate staff he had met with during the season. And had those conversations with at his home.”

He even went as far as saying that some of those assistants were essentially acting as recruiters for Franklin, trying to convince players to jump ship on his behalf. Some say this was the most concentrated roster exodus in the transfer-portal era, if you actually look at the total numbers.

More or less a total of 50 Nittany Lions had entered the portal. The most ever by a single program in NCAA history. To make it worse, 23 players from the class of 2026 de-committed. That had pushed the Nittany Lions from the top 20 to all the way to 150th in the nation. Some FCS programs had better recruiting classes.

Franklin, for his part, has publicly denied everything. The Hokies HC went on the ACC Network back in December 2025 and swore up and down that he’s always followed the rules. He claimed that after news broke of his firing. It was actually the players and recruits who reached out to him first, not the other way around.

It just goes to show how murky the rules are around the transfer portal right now. Regardless of who you believe, damage control was borderline impossible until Matt Campbell arrived from Ames with an arsenal for days.

How did Matt Campbell save Penn State

When you are a program like Penn State, the last thing you want is to enter a “rebuild year.” Matt Campbell skipped that part and got straight to work.

He leaned into his deep roots at Iowa State and essentially imported a ready-made team. Campbell brought in 39 transfer players. More than half of them (24) were former Iowa State players who already knew his playbook and culture inside and out. The biggest get was senior quarterback Rocco Becht, one of the top-ranked QBs in the portal.

On the recruiting side of things, Campbell performed a similar rescue mission. The former Cyclones head coach managed to flip 12 recruits who were originally to join him at Iowa State. By signing day, he had secured loyalty pledges from 15 commits.

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Finally, Campbell focused on the “vibes” and the coaching staff to keep the remaining players from leaving. He made a smart move by keeping fan-favorite Terry Smith and hiring defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn. Thanks to these moves and a very favorable 2026 schedule that avoids most of the Big Ten’s top teams, Penn State has already bounced back into the Top 20 in early national rankings.