Penn State May Pivot to $36M Coach After Kalani Sitake’s New BYU Contract
The Penn State Nittany Lions clinched bowl eligibility after an exciting 40-36 win over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in Week 14 motion. The Nittany Lions have been below the steerage of interim coach Terry Smith after firing James Franklin in October.
The Nittany Lions, who’ve been linked to a number of candidates, are one of many solely main packages in school soccer nonetheless with no everlasting coach after a flurry of appointments final weekend.
Penn State Linked to $36 Million Coach After Kalani Sitake Snub
Because the Nittany Lions’ teaching search dragged on, Penn State was strongly linked to BYU coach Kalani Sitake, who has led the No. 11 Cougars to an 11-1 season and the Huge 12 championship recreation. Simply because the hyperlinks picked up steam, Sitake agreed to a brand new contract on Tuesday, reportedly value between $9 and $9.5 million yearly.
On Tuesday, On3’s Chris Low revealed on X that the Nittany Lions might flip their consideration to Louisville Cardinals coach Jeff Brohm.
“Penn State should look elsewhere. Jeff Brohm may very well be subsequent. He was already on Penn State’s record,” Low tweeted.
Brohm has led the Cardinals to an 8-4 common season file and has a $33.6 million buyout, in response to USA TODAY. He signed a six-year contract in 2022, value $36 million.
Analyst Blasts Penn State Teaching Search
Throughout Wednesday’s section of “Pate State,” analyst Josh Pate blasted the dealing with of the Nittany Lions’ teaching search by athletic director Pat Kraft after the firing of Franklin.
“You’d higher be about 98 p.c positive [of having a solid target] in case you’re the athletic director, or else you’ve got screwed your program, and it’s completely inexcusable,” Pate stated. “For those who fireplace [Franklin] and you understand you possibly can go get Marcus Freeman or Mike Elko or Kalen DeBoer, advantageous. Powerful love, robust enterprise, go do it.
“You’re firing him out this window and out that window, you see nothing however fog. You may wish to have him stick round till the fog clears up. Pat Kraft didn’t do this. For those who don’t have certainty which you could improve out of your present state of affairs, however you flush in your present state of affairs anyway, you’re most likely not outfitted to be the A.D. of a significant program.”
53 days after the Nittany Lions fired Franklin, who has since been employed by the Virginia Tech Hokies, they’re nonetheless no nearer to appointing a head coach. Franklin has since flipped 9 of the category of 2026 commits to Virginia Tech, who ranks 74th within the PFSN’s CFP Playoff metric.
