If I was Franklin, I would let Penn State pay me for a few years. I think they are banking on the fact that someone will snatch him up, pay him $8M, and then PSU does not have to pay the buyout. If so, PSU is really actually quite smart to fire Franklin while there are so many many schools that would take him a in heartbeat.
So, Franklin can do nothing for $6-7M or be a head coach at a school for $8M - $10M. In essence, he is really only being paid an extra $2-3M to coach vs sit on his couch.
In contrast, he could go to a blue blood like Texas or Ohio State as a coordinator for $2M a year... not have the head coaching pressure... and PSU would pay him the balance to get back up to $6-$7M per year. And then if/when Day/Sark get fired, he would be the interim coach and perhaps keep the job.
He could go coach at Harvard for $200k a year and let PSU pay him the balance. Or coach at Rice or some G5 program that would not fire a coach who averages 9 wins a year. Or be on ESPN for a few years. Or he could just take 2 years off and survey the landscape to land the perfect job--taking over for a coach that gets poached to the NFL (i.e. not taking his whole team to another school), etc.
The funniest thing ever would be PSU paying to buyout Cignetti (enriching Indiana to get a coach that can maintain football relevance), Cignetti demanding a huge buyout to sign for PSU, and then Cignetti mailing it in for a few years big time before getting fired and riding his $50M buyout into retirement. As a WVU guy that coached at Pitt/Temple, that would be a great way to set back PSU for a long time... not like anyone from WVU, Pitt, Temple, Syracuse, Rutgers, Maryland, or the rest of the NE/B1G is going to cry over PSU turning into a team that does not even go bowling...