James Franklin says he “can’t wait” to coach again on the heels of Penn State firing him last weekend.

“I don’t know anything else,” Franklin said Saturday during ESPN’s “College GameDay.” “I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I don’t have hobbies. I don’t golf. I don’t fish. This has been such a big part of my identity, such a big part of my family. We love it.”

On Sunday, Penn State let Franklin go after the Nittany Lions’ 0-3 start in Big Ten play.

Off last year’s appearance in the College Football Playoff semifinals, the team began the year ranked No. 2 in the AP Top 25 preseason poll. But it lost in double overtime at home to Oregon on Sept. 27, dropping Franklin to 4-21 at Penn State against AP top-10 opponents, including 1-18 against top-10 Big Ten teams in conference games.

Then, with losses to UCLA and Northwestern, Penn State became the first team since the FBS and FCS split in 1978 to lose consecutive games while favored by 20 or more points in each game, according to ESPN Research.

Before a team meeting Sunday afternoon, Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft told Franklin he was being fired.

“I was in shock,” Franklin admitted. “I’m still working through it myself. It feels surreal.”

Franklin won 104 games and reached double-digit wins six times in 11 seasons at Penn State, including the previous three.

“I had a great run there,” he said. “Penn State was good to me and my family.”

Franklin noted that Penn State’s expectations skyrocketed during his tenure, especially this past offseason. That, in turn, led to his firing when it became clear the Nittany Lions wouldn’t meet them this season.

“We created that pressure,” he said. “That’s the thing that I’m most proud of.”

Franklin, 53, is still owed $49 million from his buyout, the second largest in college football history. He said now that he is looking forward to achieving what he couldn’t at Penn State.

“I thought we were going to win a national championship there,” he said. “We were close. That goal hasn’t changed. We’re just going to go win a national championship somewhere else now.”

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Carson Beck‘s last throw — his fourth interception of the night — came on a hot route after Louisville brought the blitz. The play should have worked, Beck said, but there was “a miscommunication” and his receiver ran the wrong route. Instead, the pass found Louisville’s T.J. Capers with 32 seconds to play, and Miami‘s undefeated season came to an end.

That was the story of Miami’s night — one mistake on top of another, until it was finally too much for the No. 2 team in the country to overcome.

“That’s a really poor job of execution and discipline,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said after the Hurricanes fell 24-21 to the unranked Cardinals. “That’s all of us — every player and every coach. After having some really good performances and working really hard in practice, that’s really disappointing. We’re all disappointed. We’re all pissed.”

Louisville schemed a nearly flawless game to torment the Hurricanes.

The Cardinals scored on their first two drives, showing Miami’s defense looks it hadn’t seen all season, safety Zechariah Poyser said.

“They had a great plan,” Poyser said. “They came up with stuff we hadn’t seen and we had to adjust to. We weren’t prepared for it.”

The early 14-0 deficit combined with a Louisville defensive game plan aimed at stuffing the run and forcing Beck to make quick throws frustrated the Miami offense too.

Beck’s first pick came on a deep shot over the middle in which Antonio Watts made a nifty catch for the interception. Beck went deep again on the next drive and was again picked off. He threw his third interception on a fourth-down heave in the fourth quarter that appeared to be a dagger for the Hurricanes, but Keionte Scott‘s forced fumble on the Cardinals’ ensuing drive set up a touchdown that gave Miami life.

Trailing by three with all three timeouts left, Miami drove to the Louisville 31, but coming off a timeout, Beck dodged pressure and tossed toward the sideline, where tight end Elija Lofton was out of position and the ball was intercepted, sealing the Louisville win.

It has become a familiar theme for Miami, which lost for the 10th time as a favorite under Cristobal.

Despite the ugly performance, however, Beck insisted this loss wasn’t going to define Miami.

“It’s a good thing we play 12 games and not just one,” Beck said. “That’s the biggest thing we have to realize is there’s more opportunities. We’ve been very successful this season, and shoot, we laid an egg tonight. I have to prepare better, I have to play better, and I’m going to do that and come back with fire.”

Cristobal lamented a bevy of missed opportunities, from costly penalties to the four turnovers, but insisted his team is built to withstand the loss.

“You better go out and do something about it,” Cristobal said. “That’s got to be the complete commitment of everybody. There’s no B.S., and there’s no excuse making. There’s no time to sit around and do anything but go back to work and go get better. That’s what it takes. That’s what real men do, and that’s what we have to do.”

Prince Andrew insisted his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, sign a one-year gag order – to prevent details of her allegations tarnishing the late Queen’s platinum jubilee, her memoirs have claimed.

Andrew relinquished his Duke of York title and remaining honours on Friday evening.

It came after discussions with King Charles, in consultation with the Prince of Wales, both of whom wanted to bring an end to the long-lasting scandal.

But, according to The Telegraph, Ms Giuffre’s book, which is due out on Tuesday, is focusing further attention on the sexual assault allegations and the prince’s friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, which led to the royal’s downfall.

She tells how Andrew’s “disastrous” Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis was like an “injection of jet fuel” for her legal team, and it raised the possibility of “subpoenaing” his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, and daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie and drawing them into the legal case.

The Telegraph also reports Ms Giuffre’s claims that she got “more out of” Andrew than a reported £12m payout and $2m (around £1.4m) donation to her charity because she had “an acknowledgement that I and many other women had been victimised and a tacit pledge to never deny it again”.

The former duke paid to settle a civil sexual assault case with Ms Giuffre in 2022, despite insisting he had never met her.

Ms Giuffre alleged she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was 17, after being trafficked by Epstein. Andrew continues to vehemently deny her allegations.

Read more:
Andrew giving up title is ‘Victory for Virginia’
Everything we know about Andrew losing titles
Prince Andrew: A timeline of events

Queen Elizabeth II was celebrating her platinum jubilee in 2022 – the first British monarch to reach the milestone – as the civil case against her son was gathering pace.

It was settled nine days after she reached the 70th anniversary of her accession.

According to the Telegraph, Ms Giuffre, who died in April, reveals in her book: “I agreed to a one-year gag order, which seemed important to the prince because it ensured that his mother’s platinum jubilee would not be tarnished any more than it already had been.”

In January 2022, a US judge ruled the civil case against Andrew could go ahead, and the Queen went on to strip him of his honorary military roles, with the prince also giving up his HRH style.

‘Devastating’ interview

His 2019 Newsnight interview, which he hoped would clear his name, backfired when he said he “did not regret” his friendship with convicted paedophile Epstein, who trafficked Ms Giuffre.

Andrew also said he had “no recollection” of ever meeting Ms Giuffre and added he could not have had sex with her in March 2001 because he was at Pizza Express with his daughter Beatrice on the day in question.

Ms Giuffre, whose book is called Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, wrote, according to The Telegraph: “As devastating as this interview was for Prince Andrew, for my legal team it was like an injection of jet fuel.

“Its contents would not only help us build an ironclad case against the prince but also open the door to potentially subpoenaing his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.”

‘Amazed he was stupid enough’

She also told how Andrew had “stonewalled” her legal team for months before settlement discussions began moving very quickly when his deposition was scheduled for March 2022.

Ms Giuffre also wrote she was “amazed” that a member of the royal family would be “stupid enough” to appear in public with the convicted paedophile, after a photo of the pair walking in New York emerged.

Andrew, who remains a prince and continues to live in the Crown Estate property Royal Lodge, said on Friday the “continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the royal family”.

He insisted he was putting his “family and country first” and would stop using “my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me”.