7 Penn State Football Coaching Candidates After James Franklin’s Dismissal

Penn State officially fired head coach James Franklin on Sunday, ending a coaching era in Happy Valley that spanned more than a decade. 

Franklin was one of the longest-tenured coaches in college football. At BetMGM’s the Nittany Lions were one of the most popular bets in the college football national championship odds market.

But Franklin woefully underdelivered this year, and Penn State football odds have now completely tanked after a three-game skid that included losses to UCLA and Northwestern. 

The latter was the final nail in Franklin’s coffin. Penn State now owes him a buyout worth tens of millions of dollars.

Penn State will be one of the premier jobs available during this upcoming coaching carousel, and the administration will likely interview a wide-ranging field of top candidates. 

Here are seven names I expect will be among the coaches considered to replace James Franklin as head coach of Penn State. 

Matt Rhule

Nebraska’s current coach was an obvious Penn State candidate almost immediately after Franklin’s dismissal was announced.

Rhule walked on as a linebacker at Penn State in 1994. He has a strong record of success at the college level, including as a head coach at a Pennsylvania university. He coached four years at Temple from 2013-16, winning a conference title in 2016 and notching back-to-back 10-win seasons. And that was Temple!

Curt Cignetti

The hottest name in college football coaching is already in the Big Ten. If you’re not sure Cignetti could win at Penn State, just Google him.

Cignetti’s transformation of Indiana is a great story, but you have to wonder if he’d take one more upgrade to maximize his chances of winning a championship. Indiana has actually given him quite a lot of resources to work with, but it’s possible that a more traditional football power like Penn State would unlock even more funding and more five-star recruits. 

The rub? Cignetti is already 64, making him one of the oldest coaches in college football. Would he risk a late restart to get back to Pennsylvania – the state where he was born, and the state where he took his first coaching job? It’s a fascinating question. 

Manny Diaz

Manny Diaz belongs on this list because he’s a current power conference coach who already knows Penn State. He worked as the defensive coordinator under Franklin from 2022-23.

That said, it does feel like hiring Diaz would be a half-step down from what Penn State can probably do with this opportunity. My guess is that the fan base would be disappointed by this outcome.

Andy Kotelnicki

While we’re on the subject of hiring Penn State coordinators, it’s worth bringing up the current offensive coordinator, Andy Kotelnicki.

Kotelnicki is widely viewed as one of the best offensive coordinators in college football. He’s going to be a head coach someday soon, and it’s safe to say Penn State will probably not hold onto him through this coaching transition

If Penn State wants to hang on to him, it might need to hire him as head coach. It would be a bold move to hang onto a hot commodity in the industry. 

The downside is that he’s never been a head coach, which would make this a big step up in operational execution. Still, he’ll probably get an interview if he wants one, so you can’t totally write this idea off. 

Will Stein

Another top offensive coordinator who’s in line for head coach consideration. And since he’s the Oregon OC, he just helped the Ducks score a head-to-head win over Penn State that started the losing streak ending with Franklin’s dismissal.

This is exactly the kind of in-demand offensive mind that Penn State can leverage its power and branding to hire. 

Terry Smith 

As a general rule, I never write off the interim head coach as a full-time hiring consideration. Smith isn’t quite a Penn State lifer, but he played wide receiver for the Nittany Lions in the late 1980s and has been on Franklin’s coaching staff in Happy Valley since 2014. That includes the Associate Head Coach tag since 2016.

This would be a continuity hire – an acknowledgement that Penn State has been playing at a mostly high level, but it just needs some fresh perspective at the top. The program needs an adjustment, not an explosion.

This would probably roil fans, since Smith would be arguably the least splashy hire possible. But Penn State did make the CFP semifinals just last season, so the argument for a more measured change isn’t automatically a bad one – especially if Smith can guide the team to a win against Indiana in November. 

Joe Brady

The 30-something offensive wiz kid that helped Joe Burrow win the Heisman in 2019 jumped back to the NFL immediately after his time in Baton Rouge. He’s been with the Bills since 2022. 

But Brady was a graduate assistant at Penn State after he finished his playing career at William & Mary, and so it’s possible the athletic administration will reach out to Brady to gauge his interest in returning to Happy Valley. He lacks the experience that many other candidates would have, but it would nonetheless be considered a great offensive hire by a ton of PSU fans. 

Penn State Football Coaching Candidates

• Matt Rhule
• Curt Cignetti
• Manny Diaz
• Andy Kotelnicki
• Will Stein
• Terry Smith
• Joe Brady