Penn State Turned Down Urban Meyer for Surprising Reason, Report Says
Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft is heading into his fourth week in a national search for Penn State Football’s next head coach. Kraft has been casting a wide net in his search, showing interest in current head coaches, current coordinators, and former head coaches turned media personalities.
One of the most intriguing candidates that kept coming up in the process is former Ohio State and Florida head coach and current Fox Sports media personality, Urban Meyer.
As of last week, Kellyanne Stitts of On3 Sports reported that Meyer does not have a “desire” to return to coaching.
However, on Saturday, Kevin Borba of Athlon Sports reported that Meyer did pursue the Penn State job, before being turned down by Pat Kraft for an interesting reason.
Despite being out of college football since 2018 and not coaching since 2021, Urban Meyer’s name has continuously been brought up each offseason because of his impressive career accomplishments.
Meyer is one of the most accomplished coaches in the history of the sport, with three national championships between two teams and the third-best winning percentage in college football history over his 17-year career. Meyer holds a 187-32 career record (.854 winning percentage) with coaching stops at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida, and Ohio State.
Urban Meyer Reportedly Spoke to Penn State About Head Coaching Vacancy
Penn State Football most recently saw Meyer during his stint at Ohio State, where he won over 90 percent of his games, including the 2014 national championship and six wins over the Nittany Lions.
As reported by Borba, on his Zach Gelb show on Audacy, Gelb reported that Meyer had “strong interest” in the Penn State job opening.
“I’m not going to crush Urban Meyer for lying when he says ‘Hey, I don’t have any interest in coaching again,’” Gelb said. “But I’ve talked to two sources and two sources told me that Urban Meyer had a great interest level in becoming the next head football coach at Penn State.”
According to Gelb, the conversations between Meyer and Penn State hit a major snag, though.
“The reasons why those talks did break down is when they got to the topic of NIL,” Gelb explained. “Which Urban Meyer has never been a head coach during the NIL era. His plan and his answers in terms of navigating those Name Image, and Likeness waters were not viewed as satisfactory enough.”
Gelb’s reporting matches the overall theme of what Pat Kraft focused on during his initial press conference regarding Penn State’s opening.
How Penn State’s Coaching Search is Taking Shape
Kraft noted in early October after James Franklin was fired that he was looking for Penn State’s next coach “to be able to maximize elite resources, attack the transfer portal, and develop at the highest level.”
Kraft is looking for a coach who can take Penn State to an elite level through the use of the new NIL and transfer portal rules.
With Urban Meyer’s last stint in college coaching being before the new NIL rules, this was always a question about how well Meyer could adapt to the changing landscape of college football.
From Gelb’s reporting, it seems as though Pat Kraft was not satisfied with Meyer’s ability to adapt to this new landscape.
In his On3 interview, Meyer did name a candidate to throw his weight behind in Penn State’s coaching search. Meyer told Kellyanne Stitts during his interview that Ohio State offensive coordinator Brian Hartline is ready to be a head coach.
“I’m a big Brian Hartline fan,” Meyer noted. ‘Always have been, and he just needed the experience (as an OC).”
Hartline remains one of the top candidates on Penn State’s board as the search for James Franklin’s successor continues.
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