CFB Newsletter: The Penn State Extension Industrial Complex
Why have so many coaches gotten rich off Penn State's head coaching job?
Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where Penn State is probably about to hire a coach, and it’s probably going to be Matt Campbell. But stay tuned.
Penn State’s search has taken more than 50 days. Why? Because a lot of head coaches have used the vacancy to secure long-term extensions with their current schools. Were they genuinely interested in the situation at Happy Valley? You wouldn’t have the conversation without being somewhat serious about it. Is it also apparent that Penn State is mostly being used for leverage? Yes.
But where does that leave Penn State? In earlier episodes, the crew mentioned that the Nittany Lions wanted to be early to the market. You tell the rest of college football that you’re ready to talk to everyone and anyone to make sure you lay out as many scenarios to put yourself in the best position for the future. That works best when a move is made before all the candidates get snatched up by other schools. And in Penn State’s case, the options have narrowed.
If the search ends imminently with Campbell in the job, that will be a solid outcome. But the time delay has already been costly, with Penn State a complete non-factor in the early signing period for high school recruits.
That doesn’t bode well for the Nittany Lions now or four years from now. So I asked Richard on Thursday: What’s been the driving force behind Penn State being taken seriously enough to get a bunch of other coaches extensions, but not enough to have someone commit to the vacant role?
There’s some accuracy and there’s some inaccuracy to that. It’s kind of how all rectangles are squares, but not all squares are rectangles (or however the metaphor goes). Curt Cignettti got an extension off of Penn State. Matt Rhule got an extension off of Penn State. Mike Elko got an extension off Penn State. That’s all fair to say.
Eli Drinkwitz got an extension off Penn State, Florida, and LSU. There was more interest than just Missouri. Brent Key got an extension at Georgia Tech. That’s one where there were overlapping interests as well.
Kalani Sitake is obviously the most recent one, but that was not a pure leverage play. There were people on both sides of this that thought he was gone for Penn State. This wasn’t just fake confidence. I think Sitake has pulled some leverage plays in the past in recent years, most recently last year at UCF.
Clark Lea is also an overlapping deal, where he was going to get interest from an Auburn, Florida, etc. So some of these coaches are definitely getting extensions directly off of Penn State, which funny enough, has been open since October 12.
In the meantime, we have so many good conference championship games to watch. I’m of course talking about the ACC Championship between Virginia and five-loss Duke. Much like your hosts, I’m also rooting for the Blue Devils for maximum chaos as the College Football Playoff committee has to make some decisions that I’m sure people won’t be angry at.
Here’s what the SZD crew dropped into your podcast feeds this week:
Congratulations to all of you who weathered through the three day excursion of #LaneWatch that saw the former Ole Miss head coach go to LSU. Alex and Richard broke down that move as well as all the other hires that happened on Sunday.
Richard recorded a special I-Formation episode about the coaching cycle, peeling back the curtain and explaining what really goes down in a search behind the scenes. It’s a great listen about all the work that goes into connecting the smoke to the fire of coach rumors.
Duke fan and writer Shaker Samman joined the Main Course presented by Modelo to talk about the ACC championship game. The episode is also on our YouTube if you want to check it out there. (Also we just hit 10k subscribers over there. Come join the party)
Our hosts also write a lot, including about non-CFB subjects
The closest Penn State got to hiring a coach this week was with BYU’s Kalani Sitake. But Sitake decided to stay in Utah, after agreeing with a new extension. Over at CBS Sports, Richard gave us the timeline of how an influx of money from BYU donors convinced Sitake to stay with the Cougars.
You already know this because you subscribe to this newsletter and therefore know ball, but Louisiana governor Jeff Landry has a lot of pull at LSU. Alex wrote an explainer about Landry’s cynicism in the hiring of Lane Kiffin, over at Slate.
One last Lane thing, I promise: Rodger Sherman wrote about how exhausting the whole Kiffin ordeal was over at Sports! He was so over it that he published this before an actual decision was made.
See you at the SZD/Nokian Tyres Watch Party this Saturday!
If you’re in New York, hang out with Alex and Richard tomorrow for a Championship Saturday at Mason Jar in Manhattan at noon.
Entry is free. RSVP here.
SZD Social Fun of the Week
Posting this in here for posterity: Richard is confident that Miami will be ranked ahead of Notre Dame no matter what. That may or may not lead to the Fighting Irish being out of the College Football Playoff, depending on the scenario, but he’s pretty sure that the order will not change. Watch it and be amazed as Alex was after hearing that.
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This has been a fun season. Enjoy Championship Saturday!