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Penn State should start from scratch, a player pushes for Terry Smith, more of what they're saying about the Lions' search now

Greg Pickelby: Greg Pickel6 hours agoGregPickel

The 51st day of the Penn State football coaching search looks like it will come and go without athletic director Pat Kraft hiring a replacement for James Franklin. His efforts will continue after BYU head coach Kakani Sitake, who emerged as the Lions’ leading candidate on Monday, will stay with the Cougars, BWI and On3 sources say. It leaves Kraft looking, and there’s plenty of criticism being sent his way.

“Penn State should probably just hard stop and start from scratch, rethink the whole thing,” Yahoo Sports’ columnist Dan Wolken writes on Twitter. “If it were me, I’d pivot and make Dan Mullen say no.”

Lions junior linebacker Tony Rojas, meanwhile, believes the answer is clear: Kraft should just promote interim head coach Terry Smith.

“this just funny at this point ngl lol we might go a whole szn with no HC , when we clearly got a Head coach right upstairs in the office , dont understand,” Rojas tweets. “Coach T is right upstairs man all these interviews and “Global search” when the man is upstairs above us”

Added safety King Mack, seemingly pushing the same idea:

“Making this harder then it gotta be,” he tweets.

Josh Pate believes Kraft made a mistake by not hiring a face familiar to many coaching hot boards over the years.

“Penn State should have targeted Matt Campbell weeks ago & instead opted to chase unicorns,” Pate tweets. “What a disaster. Iowa State football has existed 134 years…Campbell has them in the midst of the best 3-year run in program history His DNA blends perfectly with what PSU needs How are you this blind?”

Here are some more tweets about Tuesday’s news:

What’s next for the Lions?

That is the big question now, of course. Many potential candidates have already either signed extensions at their current school or signed with a new program. It continues to be notable that UCLA has not formally announced its hiring of James Madison’s Bob Chesney, although there’s no reason to think that is not going to happen sooner or later.

Penn State fans can continue to follow the search with Blue-White Illustrated! Until midnight tonight, an annual subscription is 50 percent off the regular price, or just $54.99. This deal goes away when Tuesday is over, so don’t miss out. Click here to sign up today!