{"id":333224,"date":"2025-12-06T03:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/333224\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T03:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:29:09","slug":"pete-thamel-confirms-there-was-no-traction-on-kalen-deboer-penn-state-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/333224\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Thamel confirms there was ‘no traction’ on Kalen DeBoer, Penn State rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Penn State\u2019s<\/a> coaching search went along following James Franklin\u2019s<\/a> departure, rumors connected Alabama<\/a> coach Kalen DeBoer<\/a> to the opening. He shot those down<\/a> Thursday, and ESPN\u2019s Pete Thamel confirmed there was \u201cno traction\u201d between the two sides.<\/p>\n

Penn State\u2019s 53-day search took multiple turns, and BYU<\/a> coach Kalani Sitake<\/a> emerged as a name to watch at one point before ultimately re-upping to stay in Provo. The Nittany Lions have now turned their attention to Iowa State\u2019s<\/a> Matt Campbell<\/a> and are working to finalize a deal<\/a>, On3\u2019s team of insiders reported.<\/p>\n

DeBoer, however, was not involved much \u2013 if at all \u2013 in the search. Thamel acknowledged Penn State AD Pat Kraft sought big names, but the Alabama coach was not necessarily a serious candidate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat did not happen, Paul,\u201d Thamel said on The Paul Finebaum Show. \u201cThat did not happen. There was a lot of pushback from a lot of sides. Kalen, himself, said something yesterday. Look, Kalen DeBoer is of the Midwest. He is not of the South. And Pat Kraft, to his credit, firing the coach Oct. 12 he did go big-game hunting. He did go knock on the doors of a lot of high-end football coaches, which is very common in a search. You want to get your search done in three days, you go knock on some doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I was told there was no traction on either side from DeBoer and trying to bring him there. Obviously, the logistics of that alone would make it virtually impossible \u2013 just like a Mike Elko hire, just like a Marcus Freeman hire, because of the College Football Playoff. Yeah, those were logical names and geographic fits. They buzzed around and met a bunch of people and did their homework on the search.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penn State \u2018shifted relatively quickly\u2019 to Matt Campbell<\/p>\n

On3 first reported Kilani Sitake as the target of Penn State\u2019s coaching search this week, but the BYU coach ultimately chose to stay put. That meant the Nittany Lions had to pivot, and Pete Thamel said they did so \u201cquickly\u201d toward Matt Campbell at Iowa State.<\/p>\n

In the process, he said the school likely ended up with someone he thought would be the hire when the search began. A deal is expected to come together soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real only other path they went down in any depth was with Kalani Sitake, who essentially verbally agreed to go there, Paul,\u201d Thamel said. \u201cWhen that went public and he had a change of heart \u2013 the pull of family, the pull of church, BYU grad, from being there \u2013 Penn State shifted relatively quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey end up at a place where, quite frankly, if you had asked me on Oct. 13 who they would have hired, I would\u2019ve said Matt Rhule or Matt Campbell. Those would be the two most logical names. They circled back, they ended up with Matt Campbell. Once this thing gets tidied up here in the next few hours, they will have a very good football coach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Penn State\u2019s coaching search went along following James Franklin\u2019s departure, rumors connected Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,136107,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-333224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-kalen-deboer-93-milbank-01","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}