I think some people are setting the Franklin bar higher than it really is for Matt Campbell. Penn State was awesome last year, but Franklin only averaged 9-4 overall and 6-3 in conference records. That's good and all, but it's not like he was only losing to Ohio State every year and couldn't get over that giant.
And mostly he was fired for being beyond abysmal in games against top 10 opponents, and for being sort of an all around jerk at times. He had built up little goodwill.
And while it seems inevitable that Iowa State will take a step or two down, especially in the immediate future, Campbell has elevated that position so much. If Pollard sticks around, he'll have a much better set of candidates than Iowa State has ever had before. Partly due to the quality of some of the assistants Campbell brought in over the years. That said, yikes...easy to lose traction fast in Ames.