{"id":370089,"date":"2025-12-25T22:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T22:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370089\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T22:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T22:25:07","slug":"report-terry-smiths-lack-of-fbs-head-coaching-prevented-him-from-landing-penn-state-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370089\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Terry Smith’s lack of FBS head coaching prevented him from landing Penn State job"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite being one of the first major Power Four openings following the Oct. 12 firing of James Franklin<\/a> six games into the season, Penn State<\/a> was without a full-time head football coach for 58 days until Iowa State<\/a>\u2018s Matt Campbell<\/a> was formally hired on Dec. 5. <\/p>\n

During the two-month-long coaching search, more than 10 candidates \u2014 from Alabama<\/a>\u2018s Kalen DeBoer<\/a> to Nebraska<\/a>\u2018s Matt Rhule<\/a> \u2014 were reportedly mentioned in connection to the Nittany Lions opening, even if most were never serious options. Several of those candidates \u2014 Rhule, Indiana<\/a>\u2018s Curt Cignetti<\/a> and BYU<\/a>\u2018s Kalani Sitake<\/a> \u2014 received lucractive contract extensions just for being mentioned in connection to Penn State.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, longtime assistant and interim head coach Terry Smith<\/a> did his best to pick up the pieces of the once-promising season and closed out on a three-game win streak to secure bowl eligibility for Penn State (6-6). That late-season surge helped boost support for Smith to be promoted to full-time head coach, especially among current and former players. <\/p>\n

During Penn State\u2019s victory over\u00a0Rutgers<\/a>, multiple players held up signs that read, \u201cHire Terry Smith,\u201d which showed the amount of support the veteran coach had built within the program. Former PSU star\u00a0Michael Robinson\u00a0also advocated for Smith to get the top job.<\/p>\n

Terry Smith on support from PSU alumni: \u2018It means everything\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means everything,\u201d\u00a0Smith said in late November<\/a>. \u201cObviously, the support that the lettermen are giving me, especially Michael Robinson doing that, obviously it means we\u2019re doing something right. Just trying to create a culture for our team to play hard, play tough, and for our fans to get behind us and support us and stay in our corner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith, a four-year letter winner between 1987-91 under legendary head coach Joe Paterno<\/a>, was ultimately retained and will return as the associate head coach under Campbell. But the lengthy search left many wondering why the 56-year-old alum and longtime associate head coach wasn\u2019t given more serious consideration.<\/p>\n

Turns out Smith was a \u201clegitimate candidate,\u201d according to a detailed report from ESPN\u2019s Adam Rittenberg, Max Olson and Eli Lederman<\/a> released on Christmas Eve. The ESPN report revealed Smith was among five candidates that actually interviewed with PSU athletic director Pat Kraft, though he \u201cultimately lacked the FBS head coaching experience Penn State desired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, prior to his interim gig this season, Smith has never led his own collegiate football program. The former collegiate receiver nicknamed \u201cSuperfly\u201d has served as the Nittany Lions\u2019 cornerbacks coach since 2014, adding the title of assistant head coach two years later in 2016 before becoming the associate head coach in 2021. Given that wealth of experience, Smith was a priority for Campbell and Penn State, which reportedly made him college football\u2019s highest-paid non-coordinator<\/a>,\u00a0according to NFL insider Jordan Schultz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite being one of the first major Power Four openings following the Oct. 12 firing of James Franklin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99,136108],"class_list":{"0":"post-370089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-terry-smith"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370089","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=370089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}