Franklin played college football at Texas A&M University where he set the record for the longest field goal in Division I-A history when he made a kick of 65 yards on October 16, 1976 against Baylor University. For a very brief period, this was tied for the overall record for all of American college football with J.T. Haxall of Princeton University, having made a 65-yard kick in 1882, but it did not last as Ove Johansson of Abilene Christian University, which at the time was a member of NAIA Division I, made a 69-yard field goal on the same day. Franklin's D-IA record only lasted until 1977, when both Russell Erxleben and Steve Little made 67-yard field goals, and he has since been passed by two other men and tied by Martin Gramatica. However, Franklin set a record by kicking a 64-yard field goal in the same game, which made him the only kicker in NCAA history to connect on two field goals of sixty or more yards in the same game.