🔎 Inside Penn State's 58-day coaching search

25.12.2025, 18:26 espn.com

EQUAL PARTS HAPPY and relieved, Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft sat at the interview table inside the media room at Beaver Stadium with new coach Matt Campbell to his right.

After 58 days, Penn State had completed its coaching search with a selection who was both exciting and sensible, someone who seemingly could have been sitting with Kraft a lot sooner.

Campbell, only 46 years old, had become Iowa State's all-time coaching wins leader and elevated the ISU program to historic consistency. Plus, he needed no introduction to Penn State and its tradition, having spent much of his childhood following Nittany Lions football while visiting his grandparents in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania.

Campbell's hiring drew instant praise. But everyone wondered the same thing: What took so long?

"We didn't really have a timeline, I mean that," Kraft said. "We were focused on finding the right person, and at all costs."

He paused.

"There probably will be a Netflix documentary at some point."

Penn State's was the first top-tier coaching job to open during a cycle that included 15 Power 4 hirings, but, until the Sherrone Moore scandal broke at Michigan, it was the very last to be filled. The search lasted so long that James Franklin, the coach Penn State abruptly fired after 12-plus seasons and 104 wins, found his next job at Virginia Tech three full weeks before Campbell was introduced in State College.

The 58-day saga included tens of millions in contract extension money for potential external candidates, a recruiting class that in large part followed Franklin to Blacksburg, the leaking of a secret audio recording of Kraft airing grievances, and the CEO of Crumbl cookies taking an interest.

ESPN spoke with sources in and around the Penn State search to assess what happened behind the scenes and why two sides seemingly meant for each other took so long to come together.

PENN STATE'S DECISION to fire Franklin on Oct. 12 rattled the college football world. Only 277 days earlier, Franklin had coached Penn State in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Orange Bowl, which the Nittany Lions led midway through the fourth quarter before falling 27-24 to Notre Dame.

Quarterback Drew Allar and many of Penn State's top players had returned. The team made significant investments in the roster and the coaching staff, where Franklin plucked defensive coordinator Jim Knowles from national champion Ohio State. Penn State debuted at No. 2 in the AP Top 25, its highest preseason ranking in 28 years. But the team looked sluggish in nonconference play against non-Power 4 opponents Nevada, Florida International and Villanova.

After a heartbreaking overtime loss to Oregon at home, losses to winless UCLA and unranked Northwestern followed.

"Things really progressed poorly this year," a source familiar with the search said. "Didn't feel like they were going to get better within this year, and then didn't feel great about the future."

Franklin went 4-21 at Penn State against AP top-10 opponents, including 1-18 against Big Ten teams in the top 10. At a news conference on the day after firing Franklin, Kraft made it clear that Penn State needed to start winning the biggest games more often, including the ones that would secure the school's first national championship since 1986.

"Football is our backbone," Kraft said. "We have invested at the highest level. With that comes high expectations. Ultimately, I believe a new leader can help us win a national championship, and now is the right time for this change."

In a meeting between Kraft and a group of Penn State team leaders after the firing, the contents of which later leaked in the final days of the search, the fourth-year athletic director acknowledged the stakes he was staring down.

"If I don't get this right, my career is over," Kraft said. "Understand that: If I don't hire the right person, my career is over. So it's very serious to me. This isn't, like, what people just think. You all are going to graduate and move on. If I don't find the right person, in two years, they will fire my ass and I don't get another AD job.

"'How could you f--- up Penn State?'" he added rhetorically.

Kraft entered a market that wasn't overflowing with obtainable candidates. Although Penn State was the first top-tier program to fire its coach, Florida fired Billy Napier the following week and LSU capped off the month by dumping Brian Kelly. This created competition among the blue bloods for top coaches.

"They figured, 'Hey, we'll get a good one, even though the market sucks and everybody else is in,'" an industry source said. "I don't think they anticipated Missouri, Vandy, Indiana, Nebraska, SMU -- everybody ponied up to keep their coaches, and that they couldn't get one of these guys. It was always going to be a bad market to hire a football coach this year.

"There's just not that many out there that are movable, and there's too many open jobs."

Penn State led its own search but contracted a firm to help handle elements such as candidate communication and background checks.

The initial speculation around Penn State centered on two coaches: Nebraska's Matt Rhule and Indiana's Curt Cignetti. Rhule played at Penn State and grew up in State College. He and Kraft were close from their time together at Temple, where Kraft served as deputy athletic director and then AD during Rhule's tenure as Owls head coach. Cignetti had no direct connection to Penn State but was born in Pittsburgh, later worked at Temple and Pitt, and secured his first head coaching job at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Barely 96 hours after Penn State fired Franklin, Cignetti and Indiana agreed to a new eight-year contract that would pay him $11.6 million annually. His would be the first of several new and enhanced contracts secured by coaches connected to the Penn State search.

Rhule's deal arrived at the end of October, and by then Penn State's focus had already shifted. Although Rhule was evaluated by Penn State, sources connected to Penn State said his candidacy became amplified more in the media than in reality.

Penn State entered the search intending to take some big swings, while recognizing that the chances of landing certain coaches weren't high. Alabama's Kalen DeBoer, Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman and Texas A&M's Mike Elko all surfaced as potential candidates.

Of the three, Elko seemed like the most realistic. He grew up in New Jersey and played college ball at Penn, before beginning his coaching career in the Northeast.

"The whole time, we thought Elko was going to be the guy," an SEC coach said. "Then he came off the board."

Elko kept winning at Texas A&M, a program that, despite no CFP appearances or recent league titles, had the financial clout to ensure it wouldn't lose a coach over money. By late October, Texas A&M was 8-0 and Elko seemed all but set for an enhanced contract to remain with the Aggies, which he received Nov. 15.

In early December, DeBoer denied having any interest or contact with Penn State about its vacancy.

Penn State "never spent a ton of time on those guys knowing their current situations," a source with knowledge of the search said.

The school wanted head coaches whose success couldn't be tied to one quarterback or a single stretch of success. Penn State prioritized those who had shown a sustained ability to recruit and develop talent.

The lengthy search sparked weeks of speculation, as the public focus drifted from DeBoer to Elko to Vanderbilt's Clark Lea to Louisville's Jeff Brohm and even to James Madison's Bob Chesney, the Pennsylvania native in his very first FBS job.

The truth, according to sources familiar with the search, is that two coaches appeared high on Penn State's wish list from early on: BYU's Kalani Sitake and Campbell, the Iowa State coach. But initially, Penn State pursued only one.

AT FIRST BLUSH, Sitake and Campbell seem like an odd pairing as contenders for the same A-list job.

Sitake is from Tonga and played fullback at BYU. Other than the 2015 season at Oregon State, he had spent his entire coaching career in the state of Utah at three different programs.

Campbell also had deep roots in a single state, Ohio, where he grew up, finished college at Division III power Mount Union and spent the first decade-plus of his coaching career, culminating with his first head coaching opportunity at Toledo. But he also had family in Pennsylvania and had spent most of his life in the same region as Penn State.

Both coaches had led major programs for a decade, and had proved an ability to win across multiple quarterbacks and recruiting classes. Both oversaw balanced teams, built around the line of scrimmage, and were known for outstanding player development. BYU and Iowa State typically don't sign nationally celebrated recruiting classes, but the teams have combined for 23 NFL draft picks since 2021.

Sitake is one of the most popular coaches in the sport, and Penn State loved his character-driven approach. Although Sitake had no connection to Happy Valley, Penn State felt he could adapt and compile a staff featuring some trusted BYU aides and others with more links to the PSU program and region.

By the end of October and into November, Sitake became Penn State's focus, while he continued to lead a BYU team in contention for the Big 12 title and a CFP berth. Penn State had conversations with candidates such as Georgia Tech coach Brent Key and Pat Fitzgerald, the longtime Northwestern coach looking to return to the sideline. The school also interviewed interim coach Terry Smith, an assistant throughout Franklin's tenure and a former PSU player under Joe Paterno.

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Smith quickly gained support from current and former players, especially as the team improved under his watch with three straight wins to end the regular season. He was a legitimate candidate, sources close to the search said