James Franklin embarrasses himself during Penn State football Blue-White spring game in viral video

Zain Bando

•
James Franklin embarrasses himself during Penn State football Blue-White spring game in viral video image

It's not every day college football coaches go at it with fans, but that's exactly what Penn State football coach James Franklin did Saturday during Penn State's Blue-White spring football game. Franklin did his best to defend himself after a fan called the Nittany Lions coach a "fraud."

In a video with 305,000 views, a fan under the alias "t1nkerzz" caught Franklin in plain view to try and retaliate against the fan. The interaction lasted 25 seconds, but it's unclear how Franklin responded to the fan other than a look of anguish and disappointment.

 

Franklin has yet to address Saturday's run-in with the fan in a statement, but this isn't the first time Franklin has caught himself in a similar act while on camera. Last November, following a home loss to Ohio State, Franklin became hostile again.

This prompted former Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer to weigh in.

“I’m surprised they let him get there,” Meyer said on "The Triple Option." “I always had two people with me that would never let me (get close) because I’d lose my cookies on a person. James is not wrong. You’re a human being. You get someone that swings at you swing a little harder back. However, his people should have never let him get over there and just keep walking him in. So there’s accountability all the way around. You know, head coaches, you can say, head coaches get paid a lot of money. I get that."

Franklin eventually addressed the November incident.

📲 Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp

"To me, it’s like posting something," Franklin said via Yahoo Sports. "Post it with your picture and your name. Own what you post. If you’re going to say something, own it. He started stuttering and backed up.”

Clearly, security didn't learn its lesson, as there are now numerous examples of Franklin drawing a fine line.

Whether Franklin discusses the incident later this off-season or not, State College is divided about what the community thinks of its football coach.

Zain Bando

Zain Bando is a freelance writer for The Sporting News. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. Over the years, Bando has written about various beats surrounding Illinois, Northwestern, and Kansas State Athletics but sticks to the Big Ten as his primary expertise. Outside of collegiate reporting, Bando covers MMA and boxing for MMA Knockout On Sports Illustrated and hosts/co-hosts two podcasts as part of the Empty The Bench Podcast Network – Bando's Breakdowns and The MMA Outsiders, which air weekly on YouTube and are distributed on all podcast platforms Tuesday nights and Wednesday afternoons. Bando is a Chicago Suburban native and a member of the FWAA and USBWA, continuing to hone his professional skills as a sports journalist and media personality. Since June 2019, Bando's byline has been seen across many mediums, including MSN, Yardbarker, Deadspin, FanSided, BJPenn.com, Bridge Media Network (Sports News Highlights), Mike Farrell Sports, Reuters, and more. When Bando is not writing, he binges on old UFC fights, spends time with family and friends, memorizes every Super Bowl, and manifests all the places he still has to travel to (even while bringing his laptop).