It has not been a great stretch for athletic director Pat Kraft.
The Nittany Lions believed they had jumped the line in the coaching carousel when they fired James Franklin after six games. They had the biggest job opening in the Big Ten, a soft 2026 schedule, and a path that looked almost too easy. Penn State will not play Ohio State, Indiana, or Oregon next year, and they face four teams that finished 2-7 or worse in conference play. On paper, a 12-0 season and a playoff run were sitting there for the taking.
Two months later, that opportunity is slipping away fast. The transfer portal can still help salvage things, but Penn State has made the task far more complicated than it ever needed to be.
Here are the key lessons from a coaching search that went sideways.
Penn State Never Built a Backup Plan
Every AD starts with a shortlist of “must call” candidates, and Kraft handled that part well. Curt Cignetti at Indiana and Matt Rhule at Nebraska were natural fits and obvious first choices.
But after that, Penn State’s list seemed to disappear.
Maybe Kraft assumed he would not need one. In the pre-NIL world, the idea of Indiana outbidding Penn State for a Pennsylvania born coach would have sounded absurd. But Indiana has invested heavily, Memorial Stadium is selling out, and the Hoosiers were willing to pay whatever it took to keep Cignetti.
Rhule made just as much sense. He played and coached at Penn State and Kraft hired him at Temple. But Nebraska finally has momentum again, and the Huskers were never letting him leave quietly.
Once those two said no, Penn State had no Plan C. Instead they bounced from one longshot to another, and the end result was handing extensions to coaches like Eli Drinkwitz, Clark Lea, and Kalani Sitake. None were natural fits in Happy Valley, and none were realistic options if their own schools stepped up.
The larger truth is simple. Penn State panicked. They let a three game skid override Franklin’s larger body of work, assumed an upgrade was guaranteed, and fired before fully preparing. The result is a mess of their own making.
James Franklin Got Motivated
There is an old saying in sports. Do not give someone extra motivation to beat you. Penn State did exactly that when they fired James Franklin.
The clause requiring Franklin to seek other employment in order to receive his full buyout was unnecessary, and it clearly lit a fire under him. He immediately went to work at his next stop, which unfortunately for Penn State turned out to be Virginia Tech.
Franklin had built Penn State’s success by dominating recruiting in Virginia, a talent rich state where Penn State often had geographic and academic advantages over Virginia Tech and Virginia. Now he is using that same strategy against his former employer.
The results are brutal. Penn State had a top 20 class lined up when Franklin was still in charge. Instead, Virginia Tech now owns its first top 25 class since 2018, and Penn State has plummeted to 150th in the ESPN rankings. That is below the entire FBS, meaning more than a dozen FCS programs even sit ahead of the Nittany Lions.
The portal can help, but whoever takes over will start from far behind.
In Season Firings Rarely Help
Penn State did not need to fire Franklin in October. They gained nothing from doing it early, and other schools proved that waiting can work just fine.
Michigan State let Jonathan Smith finish the season, then landed Pat Fitzgerald immediately after. Kentucky fired Mark Stoops after losing to Louisville, then pivoted quickly and hired Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein. And in another blow to Penn State, Kalani Sitake stayed put at BYU, choosing stability over a messy situation.
The pattern is clear. There is rarely a benefit to pushing the eject button early. Penn State fired first, and still watched other schools land their preferred options.
What Happens Now
The situation is bad enough that the New York Times floated a tongue in cheek suggestion that Penn State should pay UCLA to buy out new coach Bob Chesney before he ever coaches a game.
At this point, their best options appear to be promoting interim coach Terry Smith or attempting to pull an NFL coordinator into college. Neither is ideal for a program of Penn State’s size, but that is the position they created for themselves.
The lesson is a painful one. Sometimes the right coach is the one already in the building. And if you do decide to make a change, you better have multiple plans ready, because reputation and money do not guarantee results anymore.
Penn State learned that the hard way.
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