Last season, James Franklin was actually quite candid about his firing despite rumors of a growing rift between him and the program. Now, just this past week, everything about Franklin’s departure has come to a head. For a man who had remained loyal to the Nittany Lions for a decade, this stunning confession comes at a time when tensions were already at a boiling point.

All throughout the spring and into this summer, Franklin has started to give details about how his firing occurred. With Adam Breneman, he discussed how unfair everything had felt, despite his legacy with the team. Now, in a recent interview with The Athletic, Franklin discussed how there may have been different ideas of how the team and the organization could have moved forward.

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“Well, it’s unheard of because people have had challenges and had a chance to fix it,” Franklin told The Athletic. “What makes it what you described is we didn’t get a chance to fix it.” Of course, while Franklin was on a three-game losing streak, it had more to do with how the program had felt about the progress he was making. To many, including athletic director Pat Kraft, Franklin’s progress was not good enough.

“This is not just a three game thing,” Kraft said in October. “This is really diving into where we were as a program. What is the trajectory of this program? And you all know, and I’m not shy to admit it, I’m here to win national championships”.

At the end of the day, both parties found the right formula with Franklin finding a new home in Blacksburg with Virginia Tech and the Nittany Lions organization landing on Matt Campbell as the head coach to start anew. Still, Franklin’s words will resonate around the college football world should Penn State falter this season.

This article originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire: James Franklin stirs pot surrounding his Penn State exit