Penn State looked as if it was getting ahead of the curve earlier in the 2025 season. After a Week 6 loss to Northwestern — their third straight defeat — the university decided to move on from longtime head coach James Franklin. That was back on October 12. As of December 2, the Nittany Lions still have not hired a new coach.
Nearly every major Power Four program with an opening has already found its next leader. That includes Virginia Tech, which hired Franklin two weeks before the college football regular season even ended. Now the Hokies — a program that has been stuck in the doldrums for years — appear to be in far better shape than Penn State.
That improvement starts with recruiting, where Franklin is already making an impact in Blacksburg. On December 2, Franklin and the Hokies flipped 2026 three-star interior offensive lineman Benjamin Eziuka, who had been committed to Penn State since June, according to On3’s Hayes Fawcett.
“The Hokies are back, in Coach Franklin we trust,” Eziuka said.
What’s concerning for Penn State is that the Nittany Lions currently sit at No. 130 in 247Sports’ 2026 recruiting rankings with just five commitments. The three-day early national signing period begins on December 3.
Penn State Can’t Find Its Next Head Coach
When athletic director Patrick Kraft fired James Franklin, the belief was that Penn State would have no trouble finding a replacement. Instead, every candidate initially connected to the opening has already been hired by other schools.
The latest reported option is BYU’s Kalani Sitake — but even that appears complicated.
CBS Sports’ Chris Hummer and Matt Zenitz described the situation between Sitake, BYU, and Penn State as a “fluid situation.”
“BYU is working hard to try to keep head coach and current Penn State target Kalani Sitake, and there’s some optimism at the moment on the BYU side that they may be able to keep him,” Hummer and Zenitz reported.
Sitake, who has spent the last 10 years at BYU, is 83–44 and has the Cougars on the cusp of a College Football Playoff appearance if they can knock off Texas Tech in the Big 12 championship game. But as 247Sports’ Bud Elliott noted, Sitake may simply be worth more to BYU than he is to Penn State.
That became even clearer when Crumbl co-founder and CEO Jason McGowan — a prominent BYU donor — signaled that the school would not let Sitake leave without a fight.
“Some people are not replaceable. Sounds like it is time for me to get off the sidelines and get to work,” McGowan wrote.
Would Kalani Sitake Be a Good Fit at Penn State?
Sitake does not have any natural connection to Penn State, as SI’s Pat Forde noted.
“He has no natural ties to Penn State, that area of the country or the Big Ten. He’s never coached further east than the Mountain time zone. In proverbial ‘fit’ terms, he doesn’t,” Forde wrote.
Fit, however, is not everything — winning is. Sitake has shown he can win at BYU, a program that has not claimed a conference title since 2007 when it played in the Mountain West. At Penn State, the ceiling is significantly higher. With Big Ten membership, major resources, and national recruiting reach, Sitake would have the chance not only to contend for conference championships but to compete for national titles.
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