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How percarious of a situation is Penn State Football in? BWI Weekly Chat

Headshot 5x7 reduced qualityby: Thomas Frank Carr3 hours agoThomasFrankCarr
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Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft. (Pickel/BWI)

It’s game day in Happy Valley, and with a night game, there’s plenty of time to hang around and discuss the Penn State Football team. That’s what we’ve been doing for two days on the Blue White Illustrated message board. Each week, we host a private Q&A with premium subscribers to answer their questions about our recent reporting or the team in general. Penn State is soon entering the decision zone for its coaching search, with the conclusion of the 2025 regular season only eight days away. As you might expect, we’re fielding questions about the coaching search from all angles.

  • Any truth to the Kalen DeBoer smoke today?
  •  Can Pat Kraft or the coaching staff make NIL offers to current players for next season to keep them from transferring?
  • Just how precarious of a position is PSU football in right now? Recruiting classes have been sacked, top talent is opting elsewhere, and still, a new coach is nowhere to be found. It feels like an airliner headed nose down toward the ground. Can the program be “pulled up”?
  • What are the top two concerns prospective coaches have about the Penn State job?

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Smith honest about how much of a threat his former boss is to Penn State

Part of the news this week wasn’t just about former Penn State head coach James Franklin joining Virginia Tech. An underreported storyline from early in the week was that several of the team’s top assistants left the program to join him in Blacksburg. Obviously, it’s caused a destabilizing ripple effect across the program that interim head coach Terry Smith has had to deal with. However, that’s not the biggest threat that Franklin poses to the program at large. The bigger threat is that he’s only getting started.

“Well, the immediate threat is to take Penn State players, right? With the uncertainty of the next head coach, the locker room is the most important thing that we can do, is protect the locker room. When it comes to recruits, high school recruits, he has an advantage right now because we don’t have a permanent head coach.”

Ask your questions on the Weekly chat thread!

BWI Weekend Chat –Nov. 20

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