James Franklin details what he learned from Beau Pribula transfer

The College Football Playoff expanded last season to 12 teams and, for the first time head coach James Franklin led his Penn State Nittany Lions to play in it. That led to a difficult situation balancing the Transfer Portal and preparing for the CFP.

One of the most talked about decisions was that of Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula. He made the decision to step away from the program to find his next team, rather than stay in Happy Valley for the CFP. Now, with time for hindsight, James Franklin made an appearance on Andy and Ari On3 where he broke down the situation from his perspective.

“First thing is, longest season in Penn State history,” James Franklin said. “16 games, won 13 games. You’re dealing with the Transfer Portal, or the Transfer Portal is about to open and guys have got to make decisions. You’re dealing with that at the end of the season while you’re still trying to compete, You’re basically trying to put contracts together at the same time that you’re trying to keep everybody focused on the task at hand.”

The December calendar has become a major point of critique in recent seasons. Coaches are dealing with high school recruiting, the Transfer Portal, and bowl preparations. Now, with the expanded Playoff, preparation for those vital games has also moved up, further complicating things.

“So, very, very challenging and I think there’s some things with that, that I think everybody would agree, that I think we’re gonna have to look at from a college football scheduling or calendar perspective that just don’t make sense. Everybody should be competing for a national championship,” Franklin said. “And then when the season’s over, decisions have to be made, and rightfully so. So, those things I think were very, very challenging.”

Penn State starting quarterback Drew Allar is returning to Happy Valley for the 2025 season. That would have meant another year being the backup to him had Beau Pribula stayed. It was a situation where he wanted the opportunity to start and neither the team nor Pribula had bad feelings for one another. They just weren’t able to work the situation out in a better way.

“But I was very pleased with how our staff handled it. Beau Pribula was our backup quarterback and Beau’s dream school was to come to Penn State. Grew up in the state of Pennsylvania, was a Trace McSorley fan. This was his dream. Beau did not want to leave,” Franklin said. “But as a quarterback, there’s only so many spots and schools that he was interested in were filling up, and he had to choose. Am I going to go in the Transfer Portal or stay? The problem is, it’s not like we had a hard and fast rule where he couldn’t look around, the problem is he wanted to go on visits and I don’t know how you can go on visits and be our backup quarterback in this type of game.”

Once he did enter the Transfer Portal, Beau Pribula became a coveted transfer. He’d eventually land at Missouri, though he garnered interest from several schools including UCF, Ole Miss, and Indiana.

“So, we tried to kind of work it out. I even talked about calling schools for him, but he was put in a really difficult position and so were we based on the calendar,” Franklin said. “And I just don’t feel like any kid should be put in that position.”

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