The Spin Meister
Well-known member
This is getting crazy……Mike Tomlin????
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Delco Lion
Active member
Tomlin will no more be a candidate than you or I.
Pennstate_one
Active member
I
I know at this point we can't be picky, but I'm hoping for someone younger. It's not that he's a bad coach though.
Kid Nickels
Member
I tried telling you guys that Rhule was their top target. They thought he'd finish the year strong and they'd be able to sell it to the fans. Didn't happen, and now we're stuck.
I believe you said that Rhule was going to be the next head coach and not that he was the top target. Rhule didn't jibe with Kraft's statement about a home run hire, so he wasn't the top target.
As far as being stuck, that would most likely be traced back to Kraft's Temple/BC experience and not knowing the lay of the land.
Willie Fritz is a football guy. However, billionnaire Tilman Fertitta could be the new Crumbl Cookie monster.
Big104EvuhDuh
New member
When the measure of success is CFP every year or we fire the coach (even right after a semifinal run), there are only 3 or 4 splash hires in the entire country, all at programs with more resources, more recent titles and momentum. We've seen the radioactive fallout of that sudden firing and time is forcing us to see how outsiders view PSU: The place where the fans literally expect National Titles- and will tell you how to win them- and your time is short.
IOW: Your last career stop, unless you can win at .700 and shop that to your next team mid-season after a humiliation.
IOW: Your last career stop, unless you can win at .700 and shop that to your next team mid-season after a humiliation.
Sheriff Coffee
Well-known member
I’d rather they hire Terry as HC. But that would be Kraft admitting to having failed so probably won’t happen. But PSU is now the joke of college football. Really sad to see. In the history of PSU football, the second worst situation since Sandusky.
Agree, like I've said, you don't need to be an insider to know that it doesn't take 3 weeks to hire a coach. Kraft singlehandedly ruined the program for the foreseeable future. All our recruits are easy picking, "your interested in PSU? Why, no one wants to be there, not even any coach of a major program". One man brings us to the floor........again.
LudicrousSpeedGO!
Well-known member
That isn't the measure and you are completely dishonest if you pretend that it is.
PSU has been a model of coaching staff stability. I don't know why coaches don't value this more. Franklin was given over a decade and wasn't fired because he didn't get to a national championship game. He was fired because
1) He gave up. After Oregon he simply gave up. We lost to 2 teams solidly in the bottom of conference because he didn't have the mental toughness to bounce back from his first lost (this has been an issue throughout his tenure).
2) He lost the locker room. There is zero doubt.
3) His record against the top teams has become the punchline of a joke. There is no logical or rational way to defend it. It isn't bad luck. The data is overwhelming. This is who Franklin is now.
4) He was out for himself. Every offseason it seems was an opportunity to shake his employer down. His locker room seemed to reflect this attitude this year.
5) Penn State would not have survived another home game with Franklin at the helm. It was already brutal. That is not good for any program or fanbase.
6) It wasn't so much that we disappointed this season as it was how badly we did. PSU now holds records for teams ranked at the top of the polls at the start of the season and then the massive underperformance that followed.
EVERY potential coach out there knows this and knows that PSU has been the gold standard in coaching stability up until this point. They know Franklin had to go and they know that he was given over a decade. If I'm a top candidate, I see elite level resources and the history of coaching stability and know that I can be a long-term success at PSU.
Sheriff Coffee
Well-known member
Which now makes getting a coach even harder. We fired a coach that made it to the semi-finals, fired him, and lost an entire recruiting class in two months. The expectations are high, now, without an entire class. Who wants to sign up for that? My bet is that Terry is now at the front of the class. I am willing to bet that a lot of powerful people in are Kraft’s head today.
Delco Lion
Active member
Hartline to USF… oh my
Not a history of great decisions, I'd agree. Even letting Larry Johnson, Sr. go was a stupid decision. (Who replaced him anyway?) Then Barbour and her empire building, Franklin's extension, and now this search. I must say that wrestling, WVB, and men's hockey have been well attended to.
NittanyLion99
Well-known member
I'd respectfully disagree, based on Terry's own comments. In a PC, he was asked about why it took so long to get the offense throwing the ball down the field and he responded something to the effect that he minded his own business, kept his head down on defense, so it took him a while to figure out what was going on. So, by his own words, he was not involved in "managing the empire." He was a position coach working at the direction of the DC and his "asst HC" title didn't involve having any involvement with the offense.
Agreed, the Terry option has become awkward now at best but the alternative is flailing around to find a warm body who can be dressed up as a coaching triumph.
I mean, certainly there is no shortage of people out there for whom the Penn State job would be a golden opportunity, but none of them are people who were on anyone's A-list when the search began.
The Sandusky fallout was an attempted homicide on the part of the NCAA and media. This, the firing of Franklin in the middle of the season with no follow-on plan in place while seemingly oblivious to the potential ramifications, is more like a suicide.
Maybe it was a good thing to avoid his train wreck of a boss who was rightfully canned. Based on success, only Ryan Day and Kirby Smart can claim to know how football works, with the former's success attributed to a program that pretty much wins on its own.
As long as Terry Smith knows football when he sees it (as opposed to his former boss), then it will take him another six months of immersion to be good at it. Again, it's not that complex, especially to someone who's played the game, watched film, interacts daily with players and staff, etc. Things are absorbed. Terry knows what works (e.g. running Allen & passing downfield). The CEOs of Herlocher's Mustard, Sheetz, and Weis have to face more complexity with markets, products, pricing, operations, financials, supply chain disruptions, expansion, law suits, etc.