Recent Comments
Agree with this take. We need someone in charge during this transition and, like him or not, he's the most qualified person on staff. I fully expect he steps down around the end of this year.
Maybe it's both. They are looking for an AD of football, while Whit transitions to AD of Olympic sports. Until the new AD is in place, Whit is still de facto in charge, but guessing he only gets to rubberstamp the committee's choice and helps with contract details. Or maybe he's only here until the new AD of football is hired.
I just don't see anyone available on the landscape that is a clear upgrade from Franklin that is likely to be available:
-Fran Brown - great Recruiter, but PSU was already Recruiting well. He's not really any sort of improvement over Franklin as a game-day coach IMHO
-Rhule - has been fine but not spectacular by any stretch since coming to Nebraska; he's 6-12 in the B1G; that's an upgrade??
-Kiffin - maybe close but I would consider a lateral move; 18-14 in SEC; $50mil + his contract is a lot to pay for a coach with a similar profile to Franklin.
Wanting someone better is fine, but the hard part is actually finding them.
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9 months 6 days
# | Bitter: Expect no further updates on coaching search - NDAs have been signed they need to be making themselves available for all the reasonable questions that would obviously be asked in this scenario
looks at the comments here, on twitter and on r/CFB
Reasonable questions? Lol
Yeah, I don't see this as a positive development in the least.
Lack of transparency in a hiring process is rarely a good scenario --- ask the NFLPA how that worked out for them. Whoever is running the show here --Rocovich, J Pearson, Sands---they need to be making themselves available for all the reasonable questions that would obviously be asked in this scenario. Instead, they have rolled out Whit to be some sort of de-facto spokesman and now they aren't even doing that.
So to summarize we have:
1) An AD who may or may not have a future here, isn't part of the committee, but still has some say over the final candidates??
2) A committee that is much too large, has members with loose lips who don't necessarily have any experience hiring coaches and have sent mixed messages to the media
3) a supposed $50 mil cash infusion that is, a this point, still theoretical as there is no substantive proof that the large portion of "philanthropic donations" exist at this point or will in the future.
Seems like a really perfect recipe for a massive shitshow.
I was going to say that none of the coaches who replaced Bud had DC experience, but Justin Hamilton was DC at UVA-Wise and Siefkes at Wisconsin-Platteville and Wofford! (/s)
ND made a field goal with 7 seconds left in the Orange Bowl this year that kept Penn St out of the National Championship Game, so yeah I do think its being unreasonable for Penn St fans to expect a new head coach to come in and be better than that. You're talking about 9 months removed from literally the high water mark of the entire football program over probably the last 30 years or so.
Yeah i get that. Just seems like it's more likely they do worse not better, but i guess that's the risk you have to take.
PSU is also weird bc we don't really know what the program is in modern day because the last 25 years have been: twilight of Paterno -> sanctions -> BOB rebuild years -> Franklin.
Were they consistent because they're Penn State or were they consistent because of Franklin?
STOP.
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9 months 6 days
# | Bitter: Expect no further updates on coaching search - NDAs have been signed This is going to be the response from agents when whoever the fuck is in charge of this charade reaches out:
One super high side to hiring Franklin RIGHT NOW would be he would have time to recruit, especially if he walked off the job with all the PSU recruiting data, and also he could start working on hiring/agreements with his staff. It would also give him time to decide who needs to go from current players, coaches and especially support staff. Gives him 2 1/2 months until portal opens to start turning it around and gives the players some stability in terms of who will be head whistle next year.
Let Monty keep being the coach this season so Franklin can focus solely on offseason and next year.
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9 months 6 days
# | Bitter: Expect no further updates on coaching search - NDAs have been signed And if we fire Whit a month ago, who takes over in order to hire a new head coach? You fucking well know it would be John Ballein, so lets stop this nonsense that we are doing ourselves this massive disservice by doing things this way. There was NO good option when Pry was fired, we took the least bad. Whit is involved to rubberstamp the decision made by the committee and even that is apparently too much for our fans.
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9 months 6 days
# | Bitter: Expect no further updates on coaching search - NDAs have been signed GT also made an internal hire to replace their coach. That is not an option here
But they're not looking for a sure thing. They're looking for upside. They have the money to burn, so they can hedge and make a new hire. If it fails, they just hire someone else.
Fran Brown is someone I think would have high upside who would be a great hire for them.
some of our more prominent people
Guys who actively contribute to prominent sites and podcasts
I don't think these are the same thing. If J Pearson or Mehul were going on unhinged X rants sure, but I don't think the Sons of Saturday or Chris Coleman are really moving the needle in reality.
ATLIEN
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9 months 6 days
# | Bitter: Expect no further updates on coaching search - NDAs have been signed GT fired their AD and Coach on the same day in 2022. It's doable
Either Whit is making the hire, or the new AD does it. If you don't want Whit to make the hire, then fire him and replace him. If you're going to keep him around, then have him make the hire.
This hedge where a group of 11 people are going to vet candidates and send the top 4 candidates to Whit has way too many failure points.
but yet I think Penn state fans aren't being irrational by wanting someone better.
They want to a win a natty which is fair, but what coaches can you say would "likely" win a natty at PSU? Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, Nick Saban who they're not getting.
So next tier of guys who could theoretically do it would probably be: Cignetti, Matt Rhule, Dan Lanning, Antonio Freeman. I don't think they can get Lanning/Freeman, and I don't think it's a sure thing that Cignetti/Rhule can do better than Franklin.
I get the frustration (especially with a prick like Franklin when you see him yelling at students after every game), but I think it's unlikely that their next coach exceeds the second tier glass ceiling they're finding themselves in. That's if they can even match it.
I am not sure I disagree. He was O line coach from 1995 to 2005? When we had a heck of a line.
'_'
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9 months 6 days
# | Bitter: Expect no further updates on coaching search - NDAs have been signed At this rate we're going to be announcing Johnathan Brewer as the new head coach at Christmas.
Why can't we have nice things?
CLASS WAR VETERAN
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9 months 6 days
# | Bitter: Expect no further updates on coaching search - NDAs have been signed James Franklin said, look we're good, just stfu about it!
I thought he should've replaced Rudolph as OL coach
I don't know man I've seen some really physical defense this year and some extremely hard hits. Yeah 99% of them are after the whistle and cost us another 15 yards but I'm not sure if that's relevant.
No, we should have pushed Whit to retire end of last school year and had a new AD hired an in place. I think there was at least a strong chance Pry would fail and we would need to hire a new coach, and Whit couldn't get the third chance. But as usual, we avoid making difficult decisions and hope everything magically works. Just making our situation even worse and more difficult to navigate.
Honestly think Sands needs to go too. Thanks for the work on the academic side, but enormous blind spot with athletics, a nine-figure VT enterprise.
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9 months 6 days
# | Bitter: Expect no further updates on coaching search - NDAs have been signed Ok, so we start an AD search and start looking for a coach in March?
But they don't need to make themselves available. Having a non-transparent process is the only way we're going to get an agent to talk to us before the end of the season.
No other hiring process has been transparent. We may not like it because we live for info, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect one now.