Penn State’s plan to finalize head coaching hire interrupted by an unexpected cookie monster

As Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss high and dry for LSU, and the rest of the head coaching dominoes began to fall across college football over the weekend, you could hear crickets chirping in Happy Valley. Athletic director Pat Kraft had kept Penn State’s coaching search quiet until Monday evening, when reports began to surface naming BYU’s Kalani Sitake as Kraft’s top target. 

With mutual interest from the former BYU fullback, it appeared for a moment that Penn State had got its guy. Then, BYU’s donor base kicked it into full gear, led by Crumbl Cookie CEO Jason McGowan, who called Sitake, “not replaceable.” 

Sitake is a great coach. He led the Cougars to an 11-1 record this season, his fourth double-digit win season in Provo and second in a row, and is preparing his team for the Big 12 Championship this Saturday with a spot in the College Football Playoff on the line. But is he irreplaceable? To nearly every other program in the country, probably not. To BYU, absolutely. 

Penn State will have to pay a premium to pry Kalani Sitake away from BYU

BYU has a powerful donor base. There’s a reason that the football program has shot immediately to the top of the Big 12 since joining the conference, and it’s the same reason that the school’s basketball team is loaded with talent, including 5-star AJ Dybantsa. McGowan isn’t the only deep-pocketed booster getting off the sidelines to build BYU into an NIL era sports superpower. And keeping Sitake is a vitally important part of that plan. 

Most FBS programs with a stocked warchest of resources would be a highly sought-after job with a deep pool of candidates. BYU, however, is significantly more limited in a potential coaching search because, though it’s not an official university policy, the program’s head coach has traditionally always been a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. 

That eliminates most up-and-coming young head coaching candidates who would leap at the opportunity to compete with Texas Tech for Big 12 supremacy and makes Sitake, in many ways, “not replaceable.” 

For Penn State, that means to pry him away from Provo, it will take a huge financial commitment. He’s more valuable to BYU than to any other school in the country, so for Kraft to get his guy, he’ll need to overpay, and in the era of player spending, that’s a mistake for any head coach. 

No matter how much of a slam dunk a hire seems, there’s always a real chance that it fails. That includes Lane Kiffin at LSU. Just look at all the buyout money that was paid this season to move on from coaches who weren’t getting the job done. That is money that, in the era of revenue-sharing and NIL spending, could be going directly into the roster.

No matter how great your head coach is, the biggest differentiator in college football will always be how much talent you can put on the field. Paying a hefty buyout or a 100-million-dollar contract to a head coach prevents you from spending money where it matters most. 

So, with BYU donors driving the price up for Sitake, Kraft will likely be faced with a choice: Sitake at 10+ million a year of guaranteed money, or Jeff Brohm or Brian Hartline for $8 million, with fewer guarantees and a smaller buyout. I know which one I would choose. 

If Kraft is certain that Sitake is the right hire, he may pay any price. Athletic directors rarely get the opportunity to make such a consequential hire, and if they get it wrong, somebody else will be making it next time. Conviction is important, but so is protecting yourself in case it does go wrong, and keeping what money you do have flowing in from donors available to be spent on the field. 

If Sitake is great, nobody will care about a few extra million dollars. But there’s no guarantee he will be at Penn State, and he already is great for BYU.