Penn State football wasn't the only one to fire its head coach in 2025, but it's slowly becoming the only one without a replacement.
A complete list of every potential head coach Pat Kraft has missed on since firing James Franklin
The Nittany Lions are one of five teams that fired their head coach and have yet to hire someone else. Coastal Carolina, Cal, Oregon State, and UAB are the other four in that group. In addition to the firings, James Madison, Tulane, Memphis, and UConn are without a head coach as well as theirs were poached by other programs in need.
South Florida, North Texas, Kentucky, Michigan State, UCLA, Ole Miss, LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Stanford, Colorado State, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and Kent State all found their next head coach. Out of this group, nine schools either lost their head coach due to poaching (three) or fired their coach (six) after incoming Hokies head coach James Franklin was fired from Penn State.
The coaching carousel has not been kind to the Nittany Lions, evidently. However, firing a coach with a 104-45 overall record and 64-36 conference record without confidence in hitting a home run hire is absurd.
Regardless of Franklin's record against big teams, how hard the 2025 season flopped, or the unlikeliness of his ability to win a national title, there's only so much better Penn State could get.
Franklin brought the Nittany Lions to a College Football Playoff Semifinals Game and finished the 2024 season 13-3 overall (8-1 Big Ten). On top of the CFP appearance in which Penn State won the First Round and Fiesta Bowl, the Nittany Lions made nine non-playoff bowl appearances under Franklin. They won four of those nine and also won the 2016 Big Ten Championship Game. There was only one season under Franklin that Penn State didn't finish with a winning record aside from 2025.
If athletic director Pat Kraft had a Plan A, B, and C, the Nittany Lions would already have their next head coach in place. The on-the-whim firing due to failure to meet expectations blew up in Kraft's face.
Just because Penn State was the top spot on the market at one point doesn't mean finding a coach was going to be easy. Not only that, but finding the right coach with the right resume was going to be even harder. That is, without a solid plan, which is exactly the case.
The Nittany Lions are forced to think outside the box, evident by targeting BYU head coach Kalani Sitake, who quickly shutdown that possibility. With a plan, there would be no Sitake in question. Penn State would already have its head coach, and sit back and watch the coaching carousel unfold without worry.