Penn State has plenty of pressing business to handle heading into Saturday’s first-round College Football Playoff game in State College vs. SMU.
However, this time of year often features distractions from the task at hand.
Primarily, transfer portal drama, plotting out who and who won’t be returning to the program next season as well as the annual coaching carousel conspire to divert attention.
“I’m struggling with this a little bit because I want to beat SMU, SMU, SMU, SMU, SMU, SMU, SMU, SMU,” coach James Franklin told reporters Monday in State College, as his news conference was largely diverted from talk of the Mustangs.
“I don’t really want to talk about all these other things. That’s the challenge of the timing of all these things.”
Offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki’s name being linked to West Virginia’s now-filled head coaching job, quarterback Drew Allar announcing his intentions to return to Penn State in 2025 and backup quarterback Beau Pribula hitting the transfer portal dominated much of Franklin’s remarks Monday.
Before the Mountaineers tapped Rich Rodriguez to assume his former position in Morgantown on Thursday, Kotelnicki had quickly been mentioned as a top candidate in the aftermath of Neal Brown’s firing.
But three days before WVU formally announced Rodriguez as coach, Kotelnicki posted his intentions to return to Penn State in 2025 to X.
“Just what’s going on here,” Kotelnicki told reporters Monday of his decision to stay with the Nittany Lions. “I enjoy, first and foremost, the players that I get to coach on a daily basis. Working with coach Franklin has been awesome, and the offensive staff that I work with is elite. Just a really easy decision, quite candidly.”
For Franklin, it’s simply a reality of being a consistently strong program that other universities will find the prospect of hiring away his assistants appealing.
Former defensive coordinator Brent Pry left State College to become head coach at Virginia Tech in 2021 after six seasons. Pry’s replacement, Manny Diaz, stayed two years before accepting Duke’s head coaching gig last December.
Still, Kotelnicki returning offers welcomed continuity.
“Consistency on our staff is really important but hard to do in the current college football landscape,” Franklin said. “It’s also a compliment and a curse. We keep losing staff to go be head coaches, or they leave here, go one other stop and then become a head coach.
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