The 2025-26 college football coaching carousel is primed to be one of the busiest in the history of the sport. We just surpassed the halfway point of the regular season last week, and we’ve already seen a half-dozen Power 4 schools fire their head coach.
For better or worse, there are likely more openings on the horizon. Auburn, Kentucky, and Wisconsin could all make changes. But at this moment, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg believes the best job opening in college football resides in the Northeast, not the Southeast. On Wednesday, he gave Penn State the top spot in his ranking of every Power 4 school in search of a new head coach.
Rittenberg wrote the following as justification for his pick:
Despite a longer-than-expected national championship drought, Penn State has been very close to a breakthrough and has the financial structure to make the next step. The Big Ten is a bit deeper but doesn’t have as many CFP-ready programs as the SEC. Penn State is undoubtedly one of them.
The Nittany Lions moved on from James Franklin following back-to-back losses as at least 20-point favorites at UCLA and versus Northwestern in Weeks 7 and 8. The folks in Happy Valley have been anything but, for the most part, over the past half-decade because of Franklin’s inability to topple Ohio State, Michigan, and others, specifically top-10 teams.
Last week, FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt compared Franklin’s Penn State tenure to that of Mark Richt at Georgia. The Nittany Lions’ fanbase believes Penn State can take a step into true consistent national championship contention with the right hire. Kirby Smart isn’t available to the Nittany Lions like he was the Bulldogs, but they’re hoping to make a similar type of splash once the season wraps up.
