Is a Former Washington Redskin Wide Receiver the Answer to Penn State’s Problems?

After being just a few plays away from making the National Championship last year, Penn State has had a fall from grace unlike anything we’ve seen in this era of college football. After a heart-wrenching home loss to Oregon in Week Five, the collapse came in full force as Penn State dropped its next two games to UCLA and Northwestern, prompting the firing of long-tenured head coach James Franklin. As bittersweet as the breakup between Franklin and Penn State may have been, the university immediately moved on and gave the interim head coaching role to the newest, longest-tenured member of the coaching staff, Terry Smith.

As a program that prides themselves with loyalty and respect, it made sense as to why Penn State promoted their newest, longest tenured member of the coaching staff to fill the head coaching role temporarily. Smith has been with Penn State since 2014, the same year James Franklin took over the program after Bill O'Brien's short two-year stint didn’t really do anything great, and has been the cornerbacks coach, along with being an associate head coach, since 2021. After taking over, Terry Smith has rallied this team to continue playing hard no matter the circumstances of their season. Despite losing their beloved head coach and quarterback Drew Allar to injury, every single member has fought their hardest, even in games where they’ve lost. Smith did lose his first three games as Interim head coach; however, two of those were to the two best teams in college football, and the other was a 25-24 nailbiter against Iowa in Kinnick. Since then, they have won their last two games against Michigan State and Nebraska, which have been more morale victories than anything else. After their last win against Nebraska, some Penn State players made it known on the broadcast that they support Smith and would like him to be their next hire, as some were holding up a sign saying “Hire Terry Smith” after the win. 

On top of everything that's happened, Smith himself knows the higher-ups will be looking for an external hire, and if he wants to stay put as the head coach in Happy Valley, he must pander to the right people. It has been a long time since Joe Paterno was the head coach of the Nittany Lions, but he still has some of his people involved with the program, and some of them have quite a say on who is the next coach. As a result, Terry Smith wore a JoePa patch on his jacket during their most recent game against Nebraska, which included the number 409, which was the number of wins Paterno had in his career. This is something James Franklin never really did, as he wanted to get Penn State as far away from the Paterno/Sandusky group as possible, despite how much that era did for the program. The future can only tell what happens, as it is evident Penn State has more than enough money to spend on a big name; however, if they are true to their word, then the answer to their problem lies right in their lap.