After many twists and turns in its coaching search over the last two months, Penn State named its next football coach on Friday.
Matt Campbell, who has been the head coach at Iowa State for the last 10 seasons, will become the Nittany Lions’ 17th full-time coach. Campbell led the Cyclones to an 8-4 record this season and has a 72-55 overall record with Iowa State.
With 19 wins over the last two seasons at Iowa State, the 46-year-old Campbell, a Massillon, Ohio, native, led the program to its best two-year stretch in history, including the Cyclones’ first double-digit win season, in 2024. In Campbell’s 10 seasons with the Cyclones, they have achieved bowl eligibility eight times.
Sources: Matt Campbell and Penn State are working toward a deal for him to become the next coach at Penn State. There’s multiple steps needed to finalize, including agreeing to terms and formal approval of compensation. pic.twitter.com/fKVu45cCNB
Although he hasn’t won the Big 12 in his tenure, he’s made two championship game appearances (2020, 2024) and has consistently maximized his rosters despite Iowa State being ranked outside the top 40 of national recruiting rankings every year he’s been in Ames, Iowa. Iowa State is ranked 50th in the 2026 recruiting class, according to 247Sports.
Before he took over Iowa State in 2016, Campbell had a successful four-year run as Toledo’s head coach, compiling a 35-15 record and leading his team to back-to-back Mid-American Conference championship games. Overall, he spent seven seasons with Toledo, first as a run game coordinator and offensive line coach, then as the offensive coordinator in 2011 before taking over as head coach in 2012.
Campbell has a 17-28 record against teams ranked in the Associated Press top 25 poll, including four wins against AP top-10 opponents in his coaching career that has spanned Bowling Green, Mount Union, Toledo, and Iowa State in 23 years.
Matt Campbell yells to his team from the sidelines as they play Arkansas State on Sept. 13.
He has long been a name mentioned in the college football coaching carousel and was interviewed in January for the Chicago Bears’ vacant head coach opening.
The hire comes after Penn State fired James Franklin on Oct. 12, 54 days ago. The coaching search nearly came to a close earlier this week when BYU’sKalani Sitake emerged as a top candidate for Penn State on Tuesday. According to multiple outlets, Sitake was close to taking the Nittany Lions’ job before he ultimately decided to stay in Provo, Utah, and got a contract extension in the process.
Penn State chose Campbell over Terry Smith, who went 3-3 as the interim coach and helped the Nittany Lions reach bowl eligibility for the fifth straight season. Smith reportedly has drawn interest from Memphis and Connecticut to fill their head coach openings.
Campbell has some ties to the area. He was teammates with Eagles coach Nick Sirianni at Division III Mount Union from 1999 to 2002. Sirianni was a wide receiver, while Campbell was a defensive lineman. Campbell later joined the Mount Union coaching staff in 2005 as offensive coordinator, a year after Sirianni coached defensive backs for the program. Both also coached and played with current Toledo coach Jason Candle.
Campbell will have his work cut out for him at Penn State. The program only signed two players on the early national signing day and will be replacing several starters on both sides of the ball.
Growing up in a family of six in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., former Villanova women’s basketball star Maddy Siegrist said the closest thing she witnessed to a sports bet was when the Super Bowl rolled around. And even then, it was friendly wagers.
“It just wasn’t a thing in our house,” said Siegrist, who now plays for the WNBA’s Dallas Wings. “I didn’t grow up with people who bet. Plus, there were no apps or anything. I knew people that did boxes on the Super Bowl. That was the extent of my knowledge.”
Maddy Siegrist didn’t grow up around sports betting, but it’s now inextricably tied to her profession.
Since Siegrist went pro in 2023, however, legalized sports betting has infiltrated virtually every corner of sports. Siegrist said the WNBA benefits from the sports gambling population laying bets on games. That translates to more eyes watching women’s professional basketball, which generates a bigger fan base, which spurs continued growth of the sport and its brand.
But Siegrist, 25, is quick to point out a darker side to the sports-gambling intersection, “one of the rougher parts that people don’t think about,” she said.
Public vitriol directed at athletes is nothing new. But add the sports gambling component and a bettor’s ability to wager on virtually any aspect of a game or performance at the click of an app, and the result can be toxic. Often, negative fan reaction is the result of a losing bet, and social media has exacerbated the issue.
“Any pro athlete will kind of give you the same [story]: These are people betting from their house that you’re going to go under [a projected stat total] or your team’s going to win,” Siegrist said. “With the world of social media, just how much hate people get is truly amazing. I’m not a super controversial player. I don’t have the spotlight like some of my other teammates. But if you have a bad game or a good game, you can get anywhere from 50 to 100 [direct messages] or comments on your social media that are crazy.”
Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers, a teammate of Maddy Siegrist, is one of the WNBA’s brightest young stars.
Betting burden
No longer are the WNBA and college women’s basketball considered unattractive markets for sports gamblers. Players like Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers, Siegrist’s teammate on the Wings, are among the stars generating buzz, and, by extension, causing a spike in gambling activity on the sport.
Female athletes, professional and amateur, shoulder many challenges beyond maintaining elite performance on the court or field. That includes playing in the age of the ever-growing legalized sports betting industry — especially the proliferation of multimillion-dollar business partnerships between pro sports leagues like the WNBA and gaming companies like BetMGM.
And sports remain corrupted by the underworld of illegal gambling, where pro athletes can turn to a side hustle to try to score millions illicitly. The recent unsealing of the federal indictments that involve illegal gambling schemes, the NBA, and purported organized crime members is one such example, and Siegrist said she had followed those recent announcements.
While the WNBA and the players’ union continue collective bargaining negotiations, there are developments regarding salary structure in the league’s latest proposal. The changes could temper a longstanding gripe by professional women’s basketball players: that their compensation is not commensurate with the gargantuan salaries made by male pro hoops players — as they shoulder the shared burden of scrutiny from bettors and fans alike.
According to a source with knowledge of the situation, the league’s latest proposal includes language that defines a maximum salary structure with a guaranteed $1 million base for 2026 and projected revenue sharing pushing total earnings for max-salary players to more than $1.2 million. This follows an agreement to extend the current labor agreement to Jan. 9
The average player’s salary is projected to exceed $500,000 in 2026, while the minimum salary is projected to be more than $225,000 — up from approximately $102,000 and $66,000, respectively, in 2025.
Once the WNBA season starts, Siegrist said she drastically reduces her social media use to keep her mind clear of clutter and keep the focus on basketball.
“You have to take it for what it is. Obviously, social media helps you build your brand, stay connected,” she said. “From that perspective, it’s great. It’s really allowed athletes to monetize off of themselves, and it gives fans a unique perspective into seeing these people’s lives, which I think is great.
“Twitter [now known as X] is the worst. I definitely try to not go on at all during the season. … Sometimes I like to scroll on TikTok, take my mind off stuff. But I don’t ‘like’ anything that has to do with the WNBA on TikTok. I think for me, it’s definitely a balance.”
The WNBA has taken steps to combat hate and negative fan behavior directed at the league’s players and personnel. Earlier this year, the league launched the “No Space for Hate” initiative, a “multidimensional platform designed to combat hate and promote respect across all WNBA spaces — from online discourse to in-arena behavior.”
One of the campaign’s goals is the use of artificial intelligence to safeguard the players’ and teams’ social media pages and to automatically detect, report, and delete hate speech and harassment.
“As interest in sports betting grows around the WNBA, we are taking clear, concrete steps to protect players and safeguard the integrity of the game. Player safety remains our highest priority,” the WNBA said in a statement. “We’ve enhanced security, expanded monitoring of online threats, and increased fan education. We are also working closely with our gaming partners to monitor betting activity and ensure our systems protect the game. These safeguards are constantly being reviewed and strengthened to ensure we keep the players safe and our game secure.”
Around the time the WNBA launched “No Space for Hate,” sportsbook behemoth BetMGM announced its partnership with the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces. BetMGM also is an authorized gaming partner with the league.
Even while injured, Caitlin Clark (right), here with another former top overall pick in Aliyah Boston, generates a ton of buzz around the WNBA.
“The NBA and WNBA are very different in terms of scale and seasonality — the NBA is a much bigger league, but both have shown strong year-over-year growth,” said BetMGM trading manager Christian Cipollini. “The WNBA benefits from its summer schedule when there’s less competition for attention, and star power like Caitlin Clark has driven a major uptick in engagement. Even after Clark’s injury this [2025] season, handle remained well above pre-Clark levels, which speaks to the league’s momentum.”
Cipollini said BetMGM — and the gaming industry as a whole — is committed to sports integrity.
“That includes athlete harassment, and we’re working with the leagues on this issue from several angles,” he said.
During his 42 years (1978-2020) as head coach of the Villanova women’s basketball team, Harry Perretta said gambling on women’s college basketball was never an issue for him and his players, simply because the interest wasn’t there. Of course, the bulk of Perretta’s Villanova coaching career unfolded before the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that legalized sports betting state to state.
“I guess you always might have bookies on campus. But I used to tell [players], ‘You really don’t want to get involved,’” said Perretta, 70. “People who get themselves in trouble are people who make bets without putting money down. Next thing you know, they’re behind the eight ball.”
There was that 1998 ’Nova-UConn women’s game, though. Nykesha Sales was on the cusp of becoming Connecticut’s career scoring leader before she sustained a devastating Achilles injury. But before UConn’s game against Villanova, Perretta and longtime UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma agreed to let Sales score an uncontested basket after tipoff to reach the milestone. Villanova then was allowed to score its uncontested basket, before the “real” game began. Then-Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese also had agreed to the gesture.
“We let Sales score a basket, and I checked to see if there was an over/under on that game,” Perretta said. “I checked out of curiosity. When we let her score the two [points], and then Connecticut let us score two, I didn’t want anybody saying something crazy. There was no betting on that game, but I checked. That did go through my mind when that whole sequence occurred.”
In the final two years of Perretta’s Villanova tenure — during which he coached Siegrist, Perretta said he started to see a lot more betting lines on women’s college basketball games, particularly around the start of the NCAA Tournament. The dual salvos of legalized sports betting and amateur athletes securing name, image, and likeness deals had reshaped the sports landscape.
Siegrist — who married Perretta’s son Stephen, a Drexel assistant women’s basketball coach, in late October — said that going back to her ’Nova playing days, players were consistently educated on the dangers of associating with any illegal gambling operation or people within that culture.
“I have it ingrained from college and the NCAA, ‘No gambling ever, or else you’re not going to be able to play.’ I’ve tried to keep that mentality,” Siegrist said.
The bigger challenge, she said, is now balancing her career in the online sports wagering fishbowl.
“People are crazy. They’ll post something from five years ago and comment a hundred times, ‘You suck.’ It’s a pain to go through and delete it all,” Siegrist said. “The Wings pay a company to manage social media, the outside comments, and take them down right away if they’re threatening or hate[-related]. We’re going to see more and more of that, which I think is great.
“These leagues and organizations are just trying to protect their players. At the end of the day, everyone is just trying to play the game they love to the best of their abilities. When you try and focus on that, these are all ways to keep the main thing the main thing.”
The banner made its way to the bottom of the student section, and a crew of security guards soon was hovering. Everyone had to go, they said.
“We were like ‘What?,’” said Luke Butler, who led the crew of Temple students that night at La Salle.
The fans — the Cherry Crusade — spent a few days crafting one-liners to paint onto 30-foot banners that would be rolled out during the Temple-La Salle basketball game. The “rollouts” have been a Big 5 tradition since the 1950s, even surviving a brief ban when the schools thought the messages had become too racy.
The rollouts often are a play on words or innuendoes that make light of the opposing school. You roll out your banner and then hold your breath while the other school shows theirs. Each student body takes turns dissing each other like kids in a schoolyard. The best rollouts, Butler said, are the ones that “twist the knife” just a little.
St. Joe’s students unveil a banner referring to Villanova finishing last in the Big 5 Classic last year.
But this one, Butler learned, twisted a little too much.
The Explorers entered that game in February 2010 on a seven-game losing streak, and Ash Wednesday had been two weeks earlier. Temple, down a point at halftime, raced away in the second half. And here came the rollout: “LA SALLE GAVE UP WINNING FOR LENT.”
The Temple students — the same crew who held a “funeral” a year later for the St. Joe’s Hawk — thought it was good banter. But a priest was offended, and security had instructions.
“They were like ‘Father is pissed. You basically affronted their faith, and they don’t want you in the building,’” Butler said. “That was a good example of a rollout where we said ‘This will get a good reaction.’ It did. It just wasn’t the reaction we were thinking of.”
70 years of rollouts
The rollouts trace back to the Palestra, when the building was the home of the Big 5 and basketball doubleheaders. The bleachers were filled, the basketball was good, and the crowds were lively. Philly was the center of the college basketball universe, and the Palestra was a scene.
The “rooters” who sat behind the baskets would roll out banners during the games about opposing schools. The messages were a chance for a student body to take a shot at their rivals from across the court. When La Salle students hung a dummy of their coach in the early 1960s from a campus flagpole, St. Joe’s rolled out a banner a week later that said “We Fly Flags on our Flagpole.”
The messages became more pointed, as the Daily News wrote in January 1966 that “the rollouts wandered from the realm of good taste.” The Big 5 athletic directors agreed to ban them, saying that “certain rollout subject matter has been offensive and detrimental to the best interests and continued success of the Palestra program.”
The president of the St. Joe’s student section protested the decision at the Big 5’s weekly luncheon, telling the athletic directors that they were ruining “the greatest spectator participation event in sports” and the rollouts were part of the “spectacular” that was basketball at the Palestra.
“It’s not a spectacular,” said Jack Ramsay, then the coach and athletic director for St. Joe’s. “We’re down there to play basketball. If the students want to join in, that’s fine.”
No longer allowed to roll out their messages, students at the Palestra began to shout what they would have written. Banner Ball gave way to Chorus Ball, the Daily News wrote. A year later, the students won, and rollouts were welcomed back to the Palestra as long as messaging was preapproved by the school’s athletic office.
The banners became as integral to a Big 5 game as a soft pretzel from the Palestra concession stand. You didn’t miss a basket during a doubleheader, but you also made sure you caught the dig the opposing students made during a timeout about your school.
The banners were the game within the game as the student sections planned their rollouts like a comedian preparing a stand-up skit. The jokes had to be fresh. How many times can you call the other coach ugly before it’s no longer funny? They had to be timely and tap into current events. That scandal involving a prominent alumni from the other school? Fair game. The football team stinks? That’ll work. A basketball player got arrested? There’s a rollout to be made.
And they had to be timed just right. You can’t come out swinging with your best bit. You have to build up the crowd with a few decent banners and then roll out the one you know will hit.
“You could tell from the other alumni if they were like, ‘Whatever,’ or if it really pissed them off,” Butler said. “Ultimately, that’s what you’re looking for. From brainstorming, to the making of them, to rolling them out, you’re looking for that reaction of them saying ‘Ugh.’”
A fading tradition
The rollouts, just like the Big 5, seem to be waning. Student attendance at local games is no longer what it was. The basketball programs have been down, the transfer portal has made players hard to identify, and conference realignment has introduced games with unfamiliar opponents.
Villanova — the lone Big 5 school to make an NCAA Tournament in the last five years — is the only team that regularly draws a large swath of students. Most schools fill up a student section for the marquee games but attract just a small group on most nights. Attracting students to a once-integral aspect of campus life has become a challenge.
Each school is trying to confront the decline of student participation, and Temple decided last year to revamp its student section. The Cherry Crusade does not have a student president, and the rollouts are made by athletic department staffers.
A banner made by the Olney Outlaw’s La Salle Student Section on Thursday.
They sold out their tickets two years ago when they reached the final of the Big 5 Classic and still fill the student section for a big game. The challenge has been to build a consistent presence.
“We want to find those passionate fans to bring back what the Cherry Crusade was,” said Katie Colbridge Ganzelli, Temple athletics’ marketing coordinator for on-campus initiatives. “They’re still there. We’re just trying to find those passionate students who want to be in charge of the student section like it used to be.”
Villanova’s rollouts earlier this week vs. Temple — “Rocky would’ve gone to Villanova,” one said — didn’t twist the knife. Penn’s student section is dormant, forcing the band to provide rollouts. The tradition seems to be fading across the Big 5, but credit La Salle for trying to keep the edge.
The school revived its student section this season, and the Olney Outlaws took aim at a Big 5 coach for being follically challenged and used another rollout to dunk on Villanova and St. Joe’s. They’re twisting the knife in Olney.
“We had noticed a lack of student engagement and thought this would be a fun way to get kids involved,” said Paige Mitchell, a senior marketing major who founded the Olney Outlaws. “I was working in the athletic department, and my boss at the time gave me a project to come up with something that would get everyone more engaged. It’s grown from there.”
Get your rollouts ready.
The road to the Toyota Big 5 Classic starts Saturday and ends at Xfinity Mobile Arena on December 6! 🏀 #Big5IsPhilly
The group of students — “I have a couple guys in the group who are pretty clever,” Mitchell said — brainstorm ideas for the rollout before they meet to paint their signs. They’re ready for Saturday, when La Salle plays Drexel in the Big 5 Classic.
“It’s stressful making sure they get rolled out at the right time,” said Mitchell, who’s also a center forward on the Explorers’ water polo team. “But I love seeing the way the students react. I have a couple friends who were sitting behind the rollout, and they’re blowing up my phone like, ‘What did it say?’ It’s just exciting.”
Perfectly Philly
Butler asked the La Salle security guard if he could talk to the priest, hoping he could ask for absolution. The priest was still steaming as Butler told him it was a misunderstanding. It was just some college kids making a joke, he said. The priest offered Butler penance: the Temple students could stay, but they had to hand over the rest of their banners.
But the Owls were going to clinch the Big 5 title that night, and the Cherry Crusade brought a rollout to celebrate it. Butler pleaded with the priest to allow them to keep that sign. He rolled it out to show the priest and security guard what it said. “Fine,” said the priest. The rollouts, once again, would not be banned. A perfectly Philly tradition lived on.
“There’s something in the Philly culture that rollouts hit a perfect vein,” Butler said. “The thing about people from here is that there is respect if you can dish it and you can take it. People love to twist that knife. When people did good rollouts against us, you were angry, but there was respect there.
“It’s making fun of people who appreciate it, but also hate it, and it gives you an opportunity to be a little bit of an a—. At the end of day, it’s all love. We all love Philly basketball, even though I’ll never root for St. Joe’s and I’ll never root for Villanova. But I still want them around. I want everyone to do well, so then the hate means something.”
In March of 2013, La Salle pulled off the improbable. The Explorers hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1992. They hadn’t advanced past the Round of 64 since 1990.
But here they were, on a chilly night in Kansas City, edging out Kansas State, 63-61, to earn a spot in the Round of 32.
As players danced in the middle of the locker room, with the music blaring, an unlikely figure emerged.
Donning a black suit with a blue dress shirt, the visitor walked through the chaos, straight to La Salle’s head coach, John Giannini.
It was Jay Wright.
His team had a game in a few hours, against North Carolina, but the Villanova head coach wanted to congratulate his dear friend.
Former La Salle head coach John Giannini during a game against Butler on Jan. 23, 2013.
“Once we got to the tournament, we were always rooting for each other,” Wright said of the Big 5 programs. “It was always about Philadelphia basketball.”
This was the way he and his Big 5 counterparts had been taught. When Wright was an assistant at Villanova in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he watched as head coach Rollie Massimino battled with Temple’s John Chaney.
The games were intense, and often heated, but they always showed each other respect. Sometimes, Big 5 coaches would go to dinner afterwards. It wasn’t uncommon for them to get together during the offseason.
The coaches would celebrate each other’s wins, even though they were technically competitors. Every time Wright advanced in the NCAA Tournament, he’d get a call from Chaney.
When Martelli reached the Elite Eight in 2004, he heard from Wright and longtime La Salle coach Speedy Morris.
The men who preceded them practiced the same habits, from Temple’s Harry Litwack, to Villanova’s Al Severance, to St. Joseph’s Dr. Jack Ramsay.
“The initial [Big 5] group was so together, and so tight, that when the rest of us joined, it was just the way it was done,” said Fran Dunphy, who spent a combined 33 seasons at the helm of Penn, Temple, and La Salle. “The culture was already set.”
Former Big 5 coaches Phil Martelli, Steve Lappas, John Griffin, Speedy Morris, and Fran Dunphy.
For former Big 5 coaches in the area, that culture is still intact. Martelli, Dunphy, and Wright remain good friends. They visit with Morris, and are in regular contact with other former colleagues, like Giannini, Steve Lappas, and John Griffin.
The coaches believe this brotherhood is unique to Philadelphia, a city rich with basketball lore.
“On the court, you wanted to kill each other,” Wright said, “and off the court you were like brothers.”
A ‘different’ kind of bond
Dunphy was born and raised in Drexel Hill, only a few years before the founding of the Big 5 in 1955.
Back then, it was an association of five Division I schools: Villanova, Penn, St. Joe’s, Temple, and La Salle (Drexel was added in 2023).
The future coach rooted for them all, without prejudice. He’d often spend his Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at the Palestra, watching Big 5 teams square off.
“There were three nights of doubleheaders,” Dunphy said. “It was an amazing experience.”
When he was hired as the head coach of Penn in 1989, Dunphy felt a deep sense of pride. He also felt respect for his peers, many of whom had toiled through the same high school and assistant coaching ranks.
Their connections went far back. In 1976, when Wright was in the ninth grade, he attended a basketball camp in the Poconos. His camp counselor was a young Martelli.
A few years later, Martelli coached his first high school game for Bishop Kenrick in Norristown, which closed in 2010. His opponent was Dunphy, who was leading Malvern Prep at the time.
Morris and Chaney were introduced during their tenures at Roman Catholic and Simon Gratz in the late 1960s and 1970s. Lappas was an assistant at Villanova when Martelli assisted at St. Joe’s in the 1980s.
All of this only fortified the “brotherhood.”
Fran Dunphy spent a combined 33 seasons at the helm of Penn, Temple, and La Salle.
“It was different than going to an ACC school or a Big Ten school or whatever the major conferences are,” Dunphy said. “Let’s say we went to Orlando for an AAU tournament. There might be three or four of us sitting together as Philly coaches, because that’s what we did. And we might be recruiting the same guy.
“And there would be coaches from other leagues, and they’d say, ‘What are you guys doing?’ Well, that was just the way it was.”
Added Martelli: “You never said, ‘I’m going to talk bad about this guy or that guy, just so we can get a recruit.’ Because you knew [the other coaches] weren’t doing it. So we were not going to do it.
“People from the outside marveled at it. They’d say, ‘Seriously, this is what you guys do?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah.’”
Despite this unspoken pact, the coaches were not thrilled when a Big 5 rival would scoop up a promising player. Martelli, for example, was very frustrated when Dunphy earned local star Lavoy Allen’s commitment in late 2006.
“I would say that in a complimentary way,” Martelli said. “I was like, ‘I can’t believe we didn’t get him. And to make matters worse, Temple got him. We’ve got to deal with him for four years?’”
Even at the height of their competitive prowess, the coaches would band together for the betterment of the sport and the world around them. In 1996, Martelli and Dunphy started the Philadelphia chapter of Coaches Vs. Cancer, a nonprofit that raises awareness and funds for cancer research.
They looped in their fellow Big 5 coaches: Lappas, Morris, Chaney and Bill Herrion (who was at Drexel). Not long after Wright was hired as head coach of Villanova in 2001, he accompanied Martelli and Dunphy to meet the CEO of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Fred DiBona, for lunch in Center City.
Former Big 5 coaches Phil Martelli and Fran Dunphy with their wives at a Coaches Vs. Cancer event.
The insurance company offered them $50,000, and became the group’s first corporate sponsor. That donation helped lift the chapter off the ground.
“The three of us were really competing against each other, right then,” Wright said. “And we all went together during basketball season, up to his office, and got that thing spearheaded.”
Wright, Martelli, and Dunphy are still very involved with Coaches vs. Cancer. The Philly chapter has since become the most successful in the country, raising over $22 million.
It is not the only legacy they’ve left behind. Over recurring breakfasts at Overbrook Golf Club, the coaches would talk about everything from scheduling to the format of the Big 5 round-robin.
Some of those ideas will be implemented on Saturday, in the third-annual Big 5 classic. Wright said that the triple-header format was discussed as far back as “15-20 years ago.”
He and peers wanted to put on a big event, one that didn’t cause scheduling conflicts.
“It was healthy, because we were from different leagues,” Martelli said. “Fran was in the Ivy League, I was in the Atlantic 10, and Jay was in the Big East.
“It was always for the greater good. It wasn’t about, ‘What’s best for St Joe’s? It was, ‘What’s best for college basketball?’”
‘The elder statesmen’
Wright, Dunphy, and Martelli have a reverence for Morris and the late Chaney, “the elder statesmen” of the group.
Chaney took special interest in Dunphy, who replaced him at Temple in 2006. The former head coach liked to share his thoughts after games. This was especially true if Temple had too many turnovers.
The next day, Dunphy’s phone would ring. He always knew who was calling.
“The conversation would go, ‘Franny, what the hell is going on out there?’” he recalled. “‘Why are we turning the ball over?’
“‘I know, Coach. We’re working on it. We’ve gotta get better.’”
Speedy Morris and John Chaney developed a friendship while serving as Big 5 coaches.
Like their younger counterparts, Morris and Chaney were contemporaries. They both grew up in the city; Morris in Roxborough and Chaney in North Philly.
The coaches also shared a flair for the dramatic. Neither man was above throwing his coat, or screaming at a referee, or stomping up and down the court.
They found kindred spirits in each other.
“He was tough,” Morris said of Chaney. “But I enjoyed him, very much.”
One day, in the late 1990s, the La Salle coach came up with an idea. The Temple coach was known for his expensive clothes, especially his ties. He’d often give them away as gifts.
So, Morris decided to pay it forward. He grabbed a few dozen of the ugliest 70s-era ties he could find, and asked his wife, Mimi, to wrap them up in a box. She sent it to Temple, with a note.
“It read, ‘You’ve been so kind to share some of your beautiful ties with me,’” Morris’s son, Keith, recalled. “‘I’d like to share a few of mine with you.’
“Chaney opened it up, and he was like, ‘What is this [expletive]?’”
After Chaney retired from coaching in March of 2006, he became an occasional attendee at Morris’ practices and games at St. Joe’s Prep. There was one, in particular, that stuck out in Morris’s mind.
It was 2006, and the two coaches had just paid a visit to Tom Gola, who was dealing with a health scare. They headed back to the Prep, where they’d parked their cars. As Morris said goodbye, Chaney made an impromptu announcement.
He would be coming to practice, too.
John Chaney, Speedy Morris, and Fran Dunphy.
Morris was thrilled. The high school coach asked his friend if he wanted to take the lead. Chaney insisted he didn’t. But once Morris started running a defensive drill, that quickly changed.
It was a 2-3 matchup zone, and a Prep player missed a weak-side box-out. Chaney jumped out of his chair, as if he was still at Temple.
He ran from midcourt to the paint.
“He said, ‘No!’” Morris recalled. “‘That’s not how we do it!’”
Chaney proceeded to give the student a 10-minute, expletive-laden lesson on rebounding and positioning. Keith Morris, an assistant coach at the time, nervously looked around to make sure there weren’t any Jesuit priests in the gym.
The two coaches stayed close until Chaney died in 2021. They’d talk on the phone at least once a week. They’d get lunch together in Manayunk, discussing basketball and life.
“They called each other brothers,” Keith said.
‘The caretakers’
This level of camaraderie is more challenging in today’s game. When Wright, Dunphy, and Martelli were coaching, the idea of having a player transfer from one Big 5 school to another was unfathomable.
Now, it is commonplace, with much more relaxed rules. The advent of NIL has pushed programs to generate more revenue, so they can remain competitive and pay their players. It has led to a corporate, less familial environment.
But despite these challenges, the coaches still believe that upholding the Big 5 brotherhood is worth the effort.
“Because the guys who are coaching now, they didn’t create the Big 5,” Martelli said. “They don’t own the Big 5. But they are the caretakers. And the same goes for all of us.”
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Jocelyn Nathan, a defensive specialist in her third season with Penn State women’s volleyball, is from Delaware, a state not known for its volleyball prowess.
Her graduating class at Wilmington Friends had just 50 students, a “second family” she had attended classes with since elementary school.
“I think that [family-like] dynamic is something that I really wanted to bring to the rest of my life,” said Nathan, a Wilmington native. “Penn State is huge, but I wanted to bring a close-circle vibe to campus. I wanted to bring that small-town aspect to a bigger stage. And I feel like I’ve done a really good job of it.”
Nathan enjoyed her upbringing, but it didn’t help her gain traction on the recruiting trail. She wasn’t on a top club team, which meant she wasn’t invited to U.S. training sessions and didn’t attend nationals every year like most high-profile recruits.
So, the 5-foot-6 defensive specialist took charge.
She switched club teams to Conshohocken-based East Coast Power, an uncomfortable change for a then-15-year-old who went from knowing nearly everyone in her hometown to knowing none of her teammates or coaches.
But that move set Nathan up for success she never dreamed of.
“When I set my hopes out, I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll get noticed by some lower Division I teams,’” Nathan said. “And it never had anything to do with not believing I could get to that level. It was just, you see what you are working with because not many people knew who I was.”
Her father, Len, who played soccer and baseball at Swarthmore College, compiled highlight tapes to send to college coaches. Nathan sent countless emails to schools in search of offers.
And with the help of Roberta McGuiney (née Holehouse), who played volleyball at Penn State from 2005 to 2008 and coached Nathan with East Coast Power, Nathan secured an offer from the Nittany Lions.
She appeared in just two sets during her freshman year. She said she spoke “maybe 100 words” all season as she acclimated to a her new, environment.
But during her sophomore campaign, Nathan broke out. Penn State coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley lauded Nathan’s “fiery” personality, one she noticed during the recruiting process and has only grown since.
“I think [Nathan] is one of the best teammates around,” Schumacher-Cawley said. “I never question if she’s ready or if we should put her in. She knows the game well. She competes hard. She’s a great teammate. And I’m really happy for her success.”
Nathan tallied 69 digs in 59 sets across 22 matches as a sophomore. And she saved her best for last.
In the national championship match against Louisville, she totaled a season-high-tying 10 digs as Penn State won its eighth NCAA title. Nathan believes she’s the first Delaware native to win a national championship in women’s volleyball.
“It gives me goose bumps to think about it, just knowing where I came from,” Nathan said. “I think it just made everything feel so great. Not only could I represent Delaware, but [I could] also be a symbol for the little girls who are trying to get to a Division I school.”
One year after adding an eighth star to their uniforms, the Nittany Lions are back in the NCAA Tournament for a 45th straight season. As the No. 8 seed in the Texas Region, Penn State will face South Florida at 5:30 p.m. Friday in Austin, Texas. If the Nittany Lions advance, they will face the winner of No. 1 Texas and Florida A&M.
Nathan is having another strong season in Happy Valley. She has appeared in all 30 matches and tallied career-highs in digs (130), sets played (94), and assists (17).
And through her success at the national level, she has remained grounded in her roots.
“I’ve always wanted to make people feel welcome,” Nathan said. “And I strive to do that with one new person every single day. That was something I wanted to carry with me, not just to the volleyball court, but to school and to everyday life.”
Penn State’s Jocelyn Nathan celebrates during a game against Iowa.
In 1991, a Villanova coach whose team had risen to national prominence was vilified for killing the Big 5 when the association of Philadelphia’s Division I hoops programs moved away from its round-robin format to a scaled-down version.
Thirty-five years later, new Villanova coach Kevin Willard may soon face his Rollie Massimino moment.
“It’s not going to go away,” Willard said of the Big 5 in an interview over the summer. “I think there’s ways to make things better.
“I want to go through it and figure out what’s best for it.”
On Saturday, Villanova will play for a Big 5 Classic championship vs. Penn. But what’s best for Villanova probably isn’t what’s best for the other five schools, and what’s best for Penn, St. Joseph’s, or Temple might not be what’s best for La Salle or Drexel.
To be sure, the sport has changed greatly since 1991. The gap between Villanova and the other local programs has not just grown, it’s never been greater — with Jay Wright’s run of dominance and, more relevantly, the implementation of a payment structure in college sports. Villanova is the only Big 5 school in a power conference with a major television deal and probably can afford to spend more money on its men’s basketball roster than the other five Big 5 programs combined. It probably will be a 15-point favorite over Penn on Saturday in the title game.
The money is at the heart of all of this. Forget your grandfather’s Big 5; this isn’t even your older brother’s Big 5. There are myriad reasons why the rivalries themselves aren’t the same, and they have been covered ad nauseam over the years: Young people don’t attend college basketball games the way they used to, the teams haven’t been very good, the transfer portal era has created a culture of mercenaries who travel from school to school year after year, and so on.
Fran Dunphy, the man they call “Mr. Big 5,″ who still watches plenty of basketball in his retirement, had an entire row to himself at Glaser Arena for a large part of the La Salle home game vs. Villanova last month. The Palestra has been removed from the equation almost entirely. The Villanova-St. Joe’s rivalry won’t happen this season for the first time in nearly 30 years. All of that is to say things change and nothing lasts forever.
But the financial component of it is why the current format of the Big 5 in its nascent stages — in which the six teams are divided into two rotating pods before playing two pool games to determine which teams match up in first-, third-, and fifth-place games during the Big 5 Classic tripleheader — seems unlikely to last very long.
The House v. NCAA settlement that resulted in schools directly paying players has only increased the need for financial diligence.
Players warm up before the start of the Big 5 Classic games on Dec. 7, 2024.
Villanova has to be considering the merits of keeping together an aging tradition vs. the cost of doing so, and it shouldn’t be alone in its considerations.
Instead of taking a bus ride to Olney to play at La Salle and winning by 15 in a sleepy building, wouldn’t Villanova have been better off having a home game, even if that means spending something like $100,000 to have a lesser opponent come to Finneran Pavilion? Maybe it’s not a buy-game and is instead another opportunity to host a team like Pittsburgh, which Villanova will do on Dec. 13.
Regardless of the replacement opponent, the current format means Villanova could be missing out on essentially two home games. One is the automatic road game from the two pod-play contests, the other is the Big 5 Classic itself, which divvies the pot from ticket sales seven ways between the six schools and the building.
That’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue Villanova isn’t bringing in. Sure, your reaction to that can be “boo-hoo,” but that could be the salary of a rotational player floating away for the sake of nostalgia.
“When you play 20 conference games, playing an [Atlantic 10] road game every year is really difficult,” Willard said in June. “You’re also taking away a home game when revenue has become extremely important.”
Which brings us to the other element of this, and why Villanova isn’t alone, even if the Main Line school again will be vilified publicly for whatever happens next to the Big 5 (if its competition, for example, ends up being something like a one-day-only event with rotating matchups).
Let’s take Drexel or La Salle, for example. What if instead of playing two of these three Big 5 games, those schools got $100,000 to fly to a high-major program? A few hundred thousand may be a rotational player at Villanova, but that’s a starter or two at either of the aforementioned schools.
It may be reductive to view all of this through that lens, but that’s the reality for these schools. Money is all that matters, and the toothpaste is out of the tube in that regard. There will be no going back, which means traditions, even new takes on them, can’t last forever.
The new Big 5 format breathed some life into one that was getting stale, but it was agreed upon before the House settlement. The six athletic directors soon will have to put their heads together and figure out the best path forward.
“Scheduling is as important as anything in college sports,” Willard said. “Scheduling is everything.”
Massimino felt something similar in the early ’90s, too. That much hasn’t changed, but the financial implications certainly have.
Fifty-three days ago, Penn State decided it needed new blood and energy injected into the program after a 3-3 start in James Franklin’s 12th season at the helm.
Fresh off a College Football Playoff semifinal appearance and a program-record 13 wins, Penn State had expectations to again compete for a title. To say the least, that did not happen, and Franklin was fired as a result.
The mid-season timing was meant for Penn State to get an early start on the coaching search. Athletic director Pat Kraft was adamant on Oct. 13 that “a new leader can help us win a national championship.”
By the time the calendar changes to December, most college football teams want to have their head coach in place, if they do decide to make a change. Consider this: Penn State had a coaching opening before LSU, Florida, Colorado State, and Auburn, and those programs all hired their next coach before the Nittany Lions. South Florida, Kentucky, and Michigan State all had coaching changes happen last weekend and each hired a new coach by Wednesday’s early signing day for the 2026 recruiting class.
BYU head coach Kalani Sitake was on Penn State’s radar before deciding to stay with the Cougars.
Brigham Young’s Kalani Sitake emerged as a top candidate for the Penn State opening earlier this week before he decided to stay in Provo, Utah, and received a contract extension. Other candidates like Nebraska’s Matt Rhule, Georgia Tech’s Brent Key, Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, and Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea opted to sign extensions instead of jumping ship.
There were opportunities to hire James Madison’s Bob Chesney (now heading to UCLA), a Kulpmont, Pa., native, and Ohio State offensive coordinator Brian Hartline (now heading to South Florida). Instead, the Nittany Lions chased after bigger targets, like Sitake, Texas A&M’s Mike Elko, and Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer to no avail. And Franklin not only got a new job at Virginia Tech, he took several former Penn State commits with him.
Brian Daboll, the former New York Giants coach, is a candidate, per FootballScoop, but the coaching search has now passed early signing day, and Penn State has just two players committed to its 2026 recruiting class.
The pool of candidates has shrunk considerably. The Nittany Lions’ current players and staff will have decisions to make in the coming week with a bowl game looming and the transfer portal opening next month. And at this point no matter who is hired, whether it’s Terry Smith getting an internal promotion or an outside candidate gets the job, the program will be relying heavily on the transfer portal.
After dominating Harvard at home last weekend, Villanova travels to Lehigh (12-0) on Saturday (noon, ESPN+) for a spot in the FCS playoff quarterfinals.
The Wildcats (10-2) will need to slow down Lehigh’s No. 4-ranked rushing attack (235.3 yards per game), which is led by running back Luke Yoder (110.8 yards per game). Quarterback Hayden Johnson also brings a dual-threat element to Lehigh’s offense, rushing for 426 yards and four rushing touchdowns in addition to his 18 passing touchdowns and 62.5% completion percentage.
Lehigh’s pass rush is among the most prolific in the FCS. The defense has collected 40 sacks, the fourth most nationally. Lehigh also has the stingiest run defense in the FCS, allowing just 73.7 rushing yards per game, and is the No. 2 scoring defense (13.9 points allowed).
Pat McQuaide will lead Villanova’s high-powered offense against Lehigh on Saturday.
As opposed to last week, when the Wildcats dominated Harvard with 319 rushing yards, the offense will likely need to win this game on the arm of Pat McQuaide. He was efficient in last week’s win, throwing for 193 yards and three touchdowns. Lehigh ranks 50th in the FCS in passing yards allowed per game (207.9), so there should be opportunities for McQuaide to find playmakers Luke Colella and Lucas Kopecky downfield.
The winner will face either Tarleton State or North Dakota next weekend.
Can Eastern U keep going?
Fresh off its first-ever postseason victory, Eastern University (10-1) will host Susquehanna University on Saturday (noon, ESPN+) in its first ever playoff home game for a spot in the Division III quarterfinals. Head coach Billy Crocker is a former Villanova and Connecticut defensive coordinator who has quickly built up Eastern’s football program in its fourth year of existence.
The offense is led by quarterback Brett Nabb, who ranks ninth in D-III in rushing yards and is Eastern’s top ball carrier with 1,307 yards. He had four touchdowns in last week’s 28-24 win over Franklin & Marshall.
Susquehanna ranks 23rd in rushing yards allowed per game (81.1 yards). The River Hawks have played two high-scoring playoff games in consecutive weeks with wins over Washington and Jefferson College and Christopher Newport University, surrendering 28 or more points in each game.
If Eastern wants to slow down Susquehanna’s high-scoring offense, which ranks 16th in scoring (43.3 points), it starts with the passing offense, which averages 273.2 yards. Eastern’s pass defense has been solid, allowing 158.1 passing yards per game, and its defense ranks top 30 in points allowed (15.8 points) and top 15 in total defense (249.3).
The winner will face either Salisbury or Johns Hopkins next weekend.
The BIG number
33: The number of recruits for Temple’s early signing day class, finalized on Wednesday, which was more than Villanova, Penn State, and Penn combined. That number was also the Owls’ largest in program history, and was ranked the top class in the American Athletic Conference, according to 247Sports.
Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) is expected to go early in next year’s NFL draft.
Game of the week
Big Ten championship: No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 2 Indiana (8 p.m., Fox29)
Though both teams are CFP bound no matter the result, the two top-ranked teams in college football will square off in Indianapolis on Saturday night. Heisman hopeful Fernando Mendoza, Indiana’s quarterback, is a projected top 10 pick in the 2026 draft class.
Ohio State’s defense is loaded with talent, from linebackers Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles to safety Caleb Downs.
Wednesday’s early national signing day kicked off Temple coach K.C. Keeler’s first full offseason with the Owls. Keeler was hired on Dec. 1, 2024, but this will be his first recruiting class.
Temple announced the signing of 33 players on Wednesday. The program’s recruiting class is ranked No. 62 in the country and No. 1 in the American Conference, according to 247 Sports. Of the signed players, 21 will join the team in January, when the spring semester begins. This is the largest recruiting class in program history.
“The recruiting really started as soon as the season was over, in terms of this building, that’s where you start your recruiting,” Keeler said. “That’s our philosophy, is recruit the locker room. We’ve been recruiting the locker room since the first day we got here, because it’s about culture and trying to keep your guys here, and them believing that you know they’re better off staying here than going someplace else.”
Keeler has emphasized the importance of local recruiting. Temple signed 22 players from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, with five playing high school football in the Philadelphia area.
“The recruiting staff has a lot of regional ties, so we’re able to connect with a lot of people that [we] probably wouldn’t have been able to if we weren’t structured that way,” Keeler said. “I think we’ve made a lot of strides very quickly and I think we can even make more strides. For a first year, from Day 1 to Day 365, I think it’s a pretty darn good class.”
Two notable players from the area are the Roman Catholic tandem of Eyan Stead Jr. and Ash Roberts. Stead played defensive back and wide receiver for the Cahillites, but Keeler and general manager Clayton Barnes expect him to be a safety for the Owls. Roberts will play receiver. He earned first-team All-Catholic League honors after posting 745 yards and 10 touchdowns on 53 receptions.
Chester High’s Daron Harris will likely play safety with the Owls.
Chester High’s Daron Harris is another local signee who likely will play safety for the Owls. He had 1,818 yards and 25 touchdowns as a wide receiver, while also producing 36 tackles and four interceptions at safety this season.
Harris intends to join the team in January. The Owls had just four freshmen join the team early last season. The extra depth will allow players to get a head start in the offseason.
“The fact that you have [21] early enrollees is going to make a big difference,” Barnes said. “Because getting that full offseason is going to get them more physically ready to be able to play as true freshmen.”
One position of need that the Owls looked at was quarterback after losing starter Evan Simon and backups Gevani McCoy and Anthony Chiccitt to graduation. Temple added three quarterbacks in Brady Palmer of Bloomingdale, Ill., Brody Norman of Mooresville, N.C., and Lamar Best.
Palmer and Norman committed in June, while Best backed out of a commitment to Delaware. Best, a Willingboro native, played two seasons at St. Joseph Regional in Bergen County, where he amassed 76 passing touchdowns. He suffered an injury toward the end of this season but led the team to a state championship appearance, where it defeated Don Bosco Prep.
Temple plans to add at least two quarterbacks through the portal. Then the Owls will have a competition to decide who will succeed Simon.
Temple also brought in five junior college players.
Cornerbacks Asa Locks, a transfer from Iowa Western who had three interceptions this season, and Nakeel Lawrence, an all-conference player out of Butte College in California, will look to make an immediate impact.
“In the defensive backfield, we have a mixed bag of high school kids and older kids, junior college kids, because we graduate quite a few in the secondary, [at] both safety and corner,” Barnes said. “So we had to bring a lot of guys from the high school ranks and we had a couple of older kids.”
Temple will use the rest of the winter to add transfers and JUCO players, as the transfer portal opens Jan. 2.
“That’s kind of the next phase in our recruiting,” Keeler said.
Villanova announced the signing of 13 players during college football’s early signing day on Wednesday.
Five offensive players and eight defensive players in the 2026 recruiting class signed their national letters of intent to join the Wildcats next season under coach Mark Ferrante. The incoming class features five players from Pennsylvania, five from New Jersey, two from Maryland, and one from Connecticut.
The Wildcats signed wide receivers Jasiah Brown of Morristown (N.J.) High School and Andrew Esposito of New Canaan (Conn.) High School; offensive lineman Patrick Degnan of Seneca High School; quarterback Nolan DiLucia of Peters Township (Pa.) High School; and running back Brandon Way of Lancaster Catholic.
Brown will play wide receiver on the Main Line after a decorated high school career as a two-way starter at Morristown, where he earned first-team all-conference honors. Esposito, a 6-foot-3 receiver, was among the top recruits out of Connecticut and was named the state’s MaxPreps Player of the Year in 2024. He had nine touchdowns and also recorded two interceptions.
DiLucia will add depth at quarterback. He was named first-team all-conference three times and twice earned all-state recognition.
Way is the only new signee to join Villanova’s talented running back corps. In his high school career at Lancaster Catholic, he totaled 1,500 yards and 21 touchdowns and earned all-state recognition.
Villanova’s Mark Ferrante during the program’s FCS playoff matchup against Harvard on Nov. 29.
Signees on defense
Villanova’s defensive recruits include linemen Thomas Coates of Urbana High School in Ijamsville, Md., and Jackson Kraemer of Mount Lebanon High School in Pittsburgh; defensive backs Abu Fofana of Conwell-Egan, Luis Martinez of Allentown Central Catholic, Isaiah Selby of Paramus (N.J.) Catholic, and Jordan Taylor of North Point High School in Waldorf, Md.; and linebackers Colin Gurley of Central York High School and Donovan Linthicum of Oakcrest High School.
Gurley, a two-time all-state honoree, registered 100 tackles (26 for loss) and 17½ sacks at Central York. Linthicum earned all-state honors in New Jersey while recording 380 tackles.
Selby helped lead Paramus Catholic to the New Jersey state playoffs as a two-way starter. At defensive back, he totaled 40 tackles and forced two fumbles.
The newly signed players will be part of Villanova’s inaugural campaign in the Patriot League of the FCS as the program changes conferences for the 2026 season.
Villanova will visit Lehigh in the second round of the FCS playoffs on Saturday (noon, ESPN+).
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — It has been 52 days since Penn State fired coach James Franklin. What has followed has been a tumultuous coaching search filled with reported hiring whiffs and former recruits withdrawing their commitments.
The program’s once-impressive 2026 football recruiting class, which ranked inside the top 20 of 247Sports’ composite rankings before Franklin’s departure, has fallen to No. 150.
That’s because Franklin didn’t just take his belongings and his “1-0” motto with him to Blacksburg, Va. He also brought his recruits, flipping 11 Penn State Class of 2026 pledges to Virginia Tech.
Those defections have depleted the Nittany Lions’ 2026 class, which has just two players as of Wednesday’s early national signing day.
Penn State’s signees
Jackson Ford, a four-star edge rusher in 247Sports’ composite rankings, signed with the Nittany Lions on Wednesday. The 6-foot-4, 240-pound defensive end out of Malvern Prep had been committed to Penn State since June 27.
Ford is the ninth-ranked defensive end in Pennsylvania and the No. 256 player nationally, according to 247Sports. Despite Franklin’s departure and uncertainty about the program’s national coaching search, Ford kept his pledge to the Nittany Lions.
“The people in the building are great people,” Ford told 247Sports on Wednesday. “The program itself is just built on greatness. It’s built on family — a tight connection I have.”
In a surprising move, Peyton Falzone, a four-star quarterback, also signed with Penn State. He is the No. 10 player in Pennsylvania and No. 22 quarterback in the nation, according to 247 Sports.
The Nazareth High School senior committed to the Nittany Lions in April before he flipped his commitment to Auburn in June. But after the Tigers fired coach Hugh Freeze, Falzone withdrew his commitment from Auburn on Dec. 1 and later signed with Penn State.
“Staying home in Happy Valley,” Falzone wrote in an X post on Wednesday.
Penn State interim head coach Terry Smith reportedly “played a big role” in Falzone’s decision to sign with the Nittany Lions, according to On3.com.
From PSU to VT
Penn State’s firing of Franklin on Oct. 12 signaled a drastic shift within the program, but it also meant that its future recruiting classes likely would be affected.
The list of players Franklin has flipped from Penn State to Virginia Tech includes seven four-star and four three-star recruits.
Marlen Bright, a four-star offensive tackle from DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne, N.J., flipped on Nov. 27. He is ranked as the No. 7 recruit in New Jersey and No. 40 offensive tackle nationally.
Messiah Mickens, a four-star running back from Harrisburg, withdrew his commitment from Penn State on Nov. 19 and signed with the Hokies on Wednesday.
Other recruits who followed Franklin to Virginia Tech include: Pierce Petersohn (four-star tight end), Troy Huhn (four-star quarterback), Davion Brown (four-star wide receiver), Tyson Harley (four-star defensive end), Terry Wiggins (four-star linebacker), Roseby Lubintus (three-star offensive tackle), Mathieu Lamah (three-star linebacker), Benjamin Eziuka (three-star offensive tackle), and Amauri Polydor (three-star cornerback).
A struggle-filled coaching search
While Franklin’s departure was key in flipping several recruits, Penn State’s shaky coaching search has not helped.
Early reports indicated Penn State’s interest in Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, Texas A&M’s Mike Elko, Nebraska’s Matt Rhule, Georgia Tech’s Brent Key, and Missouri’s Eliah Drinkwitz. All five coaches later signed contract extensions at their respective universities.
Penn State reportedly made BYU coach Kalani Sitake a lucrative offer to become the school’s next head coach, according to ESPN. But once Sitake accepted an extension at his alma mater, Penn State athletic director Patrick Kraft had to pivot.
After the program’s pursuit of several hires fell through, top Penn State donors reportedly are pushing for Kraft to hire Smith, according to On3.com.
