“Big Game James” Franklin, the recently fired Penn State football coach, re-emerged on ESPN GameDay Saturday and gave his best Kamala Harris impression.
It’s like they were separated at birth. Throw a Maxine Waters wig on Franklin’s bald dome and he could go trick-or-treating this Halloween as Kamala. He does now have the free time.
The parallels are many between Big Game James and Kamala.
Both are walking, talking, failing examples of the Peter Principle, the management theory birthed in the late 1960s that people tend to rise to their level of incompetence, being promoted based on past success (or other factors), but eventually getting to the point where it is painfully obvious that they can’t do the job at the higher level.
Think of Kamala working her way up the political chain as the DEI candidate, even being added to the Joe Biden ticket to counteract that he was just another old, white guy, and one with an advancing case of dementia to boot.
Joe tried to give Kamala a larger role than that of most previous VPs, such as policing the border, and she dropped the ball – repeatedly.
Some suggest that Joe took his time dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, then coronated Kamala immediately, just to stick it up the butts of Democrat hierarchy that had come for him with their metaphorical knives.
Even mentally impaired Joe knew Kamala would lose. He got one thing right.
Kamala was gifted with a campaign war chest reported at $1.5 billion and blew it all in a losing effort. It sounds a lot like Penn State going all-in financially on this year, from Franklin’s huge salary, to $3.5 million in name, image and likeness (NIL) money for now injured quarterback Drew Allar, to the $3.1 million salary for defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.
Big Game James boasted, as is his wont, that this was his best total team. Beating three inferior opponents early didn’t exactly prove anything. Then Penn State, with so many things going for it, managed to blow a home game against Oregon, and the collapse had begun.
Big Game James took his team west and inexplicably lost a game with UCLA, a previously winless team that was about a 25-point underdog. Penn State backed that up with a homecoming loss to Northwestern, another 20-plus point underdog.
Big Game James had made history with the back-to-back mammoth losses and soon was shown the door.
Where Kamala gave us word salad responses to questions, Big Game James gave us word salad gameplans.
Fast-forward to Saturday and Big Game James was flashing his best Kamala look on that ESPN pregame show.
Big Game James painted himself as the victim in all this, showing the denial and delusion we’ve come to expect from him.
He said he had a “great run” at Penn State. We’d counter that it was good, not great.
Big Game James can’t wait to coach again and indicated he still would win a national championship, just at some outpost besides Penn State.
If Big Game James is so confident on that point, let him donate his future coaching salaries to charity, as President Donald Trump has done with his presidential paychecks. Big Game James does have that $50 million or so coming from Penn State to pay the grocery bills.
We might now expect Big Game James to continue with his Kamala impression.
Perhaps he will write a book, blaming everyone else for his failures.
Then he can go on a book tour, dropping bon mots such as “people” tell him he was the most qualified coach ever.
Big Games James could minimize his 5-21 record at Penn State vs. Top 10 competition, just as Kamala seems to have forgotten she went 0-7 in swing states vs. Trump.
Big Game James came from Vanderbilt and would fit in well coaching at a similar school, where winning records and some appearances in minor bowls would satisfy the fan base.
Big Game James did that at Vanderbilt. Most ignored that in 2013, Big Game James’ final season at Vanderbilt, four players were arrested on rape charges and Franklin had conflicting stories about whether or not he had viewed videotape of the alleged crime.
I would speculate that if Big Game James gets a job coaching at a Vanderbilt-like school, he will have modest success. If he somehow is hired at a big-time program, he will continue to lose the big ones.
It will be a fitting repeating loop for a guy who was born on Groundhog Day.
Sam Ross Jr's site 