Penn State’s latest head coaching search stretches into 2026

It didn’t take long after Penn State finally wrapped up their football head coaching search for the university’s athletic department to launch another national head coaching search.

Less than a week after ending a nearly two-month, drama-filled journey to replace James Franklin, who was fired just six games into his 12th season at the helm of the football team, with former Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell, athletic director Pat Kraft put out a statement confirming that the field hockey team would be moving on from head coach Lisa Bervinchak Love.

Bervinchak Love’s contract was not renewed after her third season with the team, a decision that followed the team’s second consecutive postseason miss. Prior to 2024, they had made 30 consecutive Big Ten Tournament appearances, having never previously missed it since it was implemented by the conference in 1994.

Penn State opts for another head coaching change

While head coaching searches have, in a way, defined the past few months for Penn State Athletics, the ongoing search is unfamiliar territory for the field hockey team. Bervinchak Love replaced the legendary Char Morett-Curtiss just days after Morett-Curtiss retired following the 2022 season. She had served on Morett-Curtiss’ staff since 1994.

Whoever ends up being named the team’s next head coach will be the seventh in program history. With Morett-Curtiss having taken over from another Penn State legend in Gillian Rattray following the 1986 season, the new hire will also be just its second new head coach in nearly four decades.

It goes without saying that field hockey is a relatively niche sport, and as a non-revenue sport, it doesn’t get nearly the attention that a sport like football gets. Still, the move drew more criticism than one might have expected.

And the reason why undoubtedly has to do with the fact that it almost immediately followed the Franklin saga, which sparked widespread blowback and frustration from Penn State fans and alumni in itself.

The timing led some to question the athletic department’s current direction across multiple sports, with the official announcement not coming until nearly six weeks after the season ended in late October.

Understandably, it’s a hire that Penn State clearly needs to get right, so it’s not a huge surprise that a new head coach has not yet been named, one month after the announcement. And much like how things looked on the football side from mid-October through November, there’s no visible timetable as to when a decision will be made.

Still, there's a balance to be struck that goes beyond simply avoiding a rushed decision. As the football program learned during its own lengthy head coaching search, waiting too long or overthinking the process can result in missing out on top-tier candidates who might not stay available forever.

While the university is right to search far and wide for the right person to lead what is an extremely talented group of student-athletes, it would also serve them best to not gloss over those already embedded in the program.

Amanda Dinunzio and Ayla Halus-Johnson are both Penn State graduates, with Dinunzio now in her second stint as Penn State assistant coach (2018-2019, 2023-present) and Halus-Johnson having also been on staff since 2023. Ally Hammel just finished her first year on staff, and like Halus-Johnson, also has plenty of additional coaching experience elsewhere.

Just look at the impact others tied to Penn State field hockey have had recently coaching other schools – two in particular.

Laura Gebhart was hired by Fairfield after spending four seasons with Penn State’s field hockey program, including the 2023 and 2024 seasons as Associate Head Coach. This past season, the Penn State graduate led the Stags to a perfect season in the Northeast Conference (NEC) and just their second NCAA tournament win in school history. 

Mackenzie Allessie, another Penn State graduate, was just hired by Atlantic 10 school La Salle after serving as head coach of Saint Francis for the past two years. In 2025, the Red Flash matched the school’s single-season wins record and broke their all-time single-season conference wins record, with their lone NEC loss coming against the Gebhart-led Fairfield.

Penn State remains an elite-level head coaching job

Despite their 7-10 finish to the 2025 season, which left them 2-6 in Big Ten play and sitting eighth out of nine teams in the conference for the second year in a row, there were plenty of bright spots for the Nittany Lions throughout the year. They may not have been top-tier contenders, but it's not like we're talking about the New York Jets, either.

They started the year 4-1, and that stretch included a double overtime win over Delaware and an overtime victory against Saint Joseph’s, a school coming off of their first ever National Championship Game appearance in 2024.

They also shut out eventual Big Ten tournament runners-up Iowa, which boasted the highest scoring offense in the conference at the time, in a 75-minute double overtime game, and despite missing one of their top defenders and team captains that evening, they held the nation's top goalscorer to just one shot on goal in eight attempts.

Their 6-0 start at home was their best since 2016, and it was also the best in the Big Ten, even eclipsing the mark set by now two-time reigning national champions Northwestern.

And quite frankly, had just a handful of other things gone their way, this whole discussion might not even be necessary.

They came within one minute of beating Lafayette on the road, before the Leopards tied it at 2-2 with 37 seconds left in regulation. After double overtime, Lafayette won it in a shootout.

They also came within a minute-and-a-half of what would have been one of the best road wins for any team in the country at top-six Syracuse, before the Orange tied it at 2-2 with 83 seconds left in regulation. Then with 23 seconds to go, an unfortunate ricochet won the game for Syracuse.

Wins against these two teams would have given them five victories over teams that qualified for the 2024 and/or 2025 NCAA Tournaments.

And then at home against Indiana, Penn State took an early 1-0 lead. Dating back to October 2015, they had been 31-0 at home in Big Ten contests when leading at any point. However, that streak ended with another disappointing loss in what was one of four major “what if” moments that ultimately kept them out of the Big Ten Tournament.

Yes, five seniors and one graduate student, including four regular starters and two others who were consistently impactful off the bench, played their final games for the team this past season.

But this year’s roster is loaded with young talent, and some of the rising sophomores from 2025’s stacked recruiting class should see a well-earned uptick in playing time.

The roster projects to have just one senior starter, and with another loaded recruiting class set to arrive this fall, this team has what it takes to be a force in the Big Ten over the next several years. Many potential impact players have already made their presence felt as underclassmen, and they should only continue to improve.

For a program so accustomed to stability, all eyes are now on who will be next to lead the charge into the future, and just how effective that new leader will be in terms of harnessing this group's potential – and of course, when that decision will be made.