When will Penn State hire its next head coach? Here are likely hiring windows
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Penn State fires James Franklin
The James Franklin era is over at Penn State.
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Penn State is over two weeks into its coaching search, but that doesn’t mean it’s getting close to being finished. The Nittany Lions will go through a long process to determine who will succeed James Franklin, who was fired by athletic director Pat Kraft on Oct. 12.
There will be interviews, negotiations and plenty of waiting as some of Penn State’s targets look to finish their regular season — and potentially compete in the College Football Playoff. Operating with haste will be important for Kraft, in order to help with roster construction, but not as important as making sure he lands the right candidate.
So what will the timeline look like for the Nittany Lions? Let’s take a look at the most important dates, when coaches could join and what is the most likely time frame for a hire to be made.
What are the important dates for Penn State’s roster?
Let’s start with what dates will be important from Penn State’s perspective during the hiring cycle. Those are more about roster construction, recruiting to help the team in 2026 and beyond. There are two important date ranges in that regard — Dec. 3-5 and Jan. 2-16.
The first is the early signing period for high school recruits. Whether Penn State has a head coach by then will be telling in how the 2026 roster will be built. Getting a coach before then would allow them to retain and recruit high school seniors to be a part of Penn State’s freshman class next year — largely because that’s when most of the incoming freshmen will sign. If the Nittany Lions do not have a coach in place by then, it will be a clear sign that current roster retention and transfer portal additions will represent the majority of the 2026 roster.
The second range is the transfer portal window, and that’s when the Nittany Lions will likely rebuild most of their roster. That range isn’t important because of when it is, but because of when it isn’t. The portal window was moved this season to January from the middle of December, giving Penn State and other programs who made coaching changes more time to make a move before having to construct a roster from the portal if they need to.
When are candidates likely to accept the job?
On the other side, Penn State will likely have to wait until at least the end of the regular season — Nov. 29 for the Nittany Lions — to name its head coach. It’s possible the news starts to leak out before then if the incoming head coach ends their season on Nov. 27 or Nov. 28, but that weekend is the earliest realistic time frame for when it could become known who will lead Penn State moving forward, unless the hire is someone who is not currently employed in coaching at the college level.
However, if the next head coach has a team in their conference title game, that would push back a potential hire to following Dec. 6. And if the targeted coach makes the College Football Playoff, that gets pushed back to potentially after the first round (Dec. 19 and 20), the second round (Dec. 31 and Jan. 1), the semifinals (Jan. 8 and 9) or the championship game (Jan. 19).
What is the most likely time frame?
The overlap of some of those dates from Penn State’s side and the candidates’ side opens up a few windows for when the Nittany Lions could make a hire.
The first is from Nov. 29 to Dec. 5. That’s the window in which PSU can make a hire and have that person in charge before the high school signing period. That would allow them to recruit high school seniors and try and rebuild a Penn State class that has largely fallen apart since Franklin was fired. Any window following that one would require the next head coach to rely heavily on retaining the current roster and aggressively attacking the transfer portal.
The second is from Dec. 6 to Dec. 18, when coaches who are in their conference title game but not the College Football Playoff (but on the CFP bubble) would be available to be hired. If a hire is not made by the end of this window, it will be likely that Penn State is targeting a coach in the playoff.
The final realistic window is from Dec. 21 to Jan. 2. That includes teams eliminated from the playoff in the first or second round, but puts a clear end date for when the Nittany Lions must have a head coach in place or severely risk the future of the roster by going into the portal window without a head coach and staff.
So when can fans expect a hire? The first window is by far the most likely — and specifically on or near Nov. 29. That is the end date of the regular season, when a candidate who misses the playoff has a high probability of being available.
If they target someone in the playoff, Dec. 21 becomes the most likely day — although that gets risky because if the candidate wins their playoff game then the timeline gets pushed back and the risk of going into the portal window becomes much greater.
Now, is it possible that a candidate bucks every trend and burns every bridge at their previous school with administration, coaches and players and leaves in the middle of the season to join Penn State? Sure, but the odds of that happening are minute.
This story was originally published October 29, 2025 at 6:07 AM.
