Before Penn State hired Matt Campbell as their next coach, the school was involved in a tenuous coaching search that appeared grim at times. Despite being one of the first programs to fire their head coach this season, it took the Nittany Lions significant time to find their next lead man while programs ranging from UCLA to LSU quickly moved to hire their new coaches.
During the arduous coaching search, audio was leaked from an alleged meeting, including shots at programs like Ohio State and Oregon and the person leading the meeting, identified as athletic director Pat Kraft by the York Daily Record, saying, “I want y’all to know this too: If I don’t get this [hire] right, my career is over. Understand that. If I don’t hire the right person, my career is over. So it’s very serious to me … If I don’t hire the right person, in two years they will fire my ass. And I don’t get another AD job. ‘How could you [expletive] up Penn State?’”
