As the hiring portion of the coaching carousel cranked up last weekend — with more than a quarter of SEC schools filling vacancies as the Lane Kiffin-to-LSU dominos fell — Penn State remained quiet.

Fifty (as of Monday) days have passed since James Franklin was fired by Penn State, six games into the season. Franklin himself has found a new job at Virginia Tech, where he already has flipped the commitments of at least four Nittany Lions recruits.

As Penn State’s search stretched toward a third holiday season, and Nittany Lions fans started shopping for Christmas trees, Big Ten rival Michigan State fired its coach and announced the hiring of a replacement in a span of about 24 hours this week.

Meanwhile, the most significant development out of Penn State is BYU coach Kalani Sitake emerging as a strong candidate, though a resolution didn’t appear imminent as of Monday evening.

Maybe call it Antsy Valley these days.

What’s going on with Penn State’s coaching search?

What we think we know

Relative to some of the other high-profile searches, there hasn’t been a ton of clear and reliable information leaking about Penn State’s search, which is being led by athletic director Pat Kraft.

What we think we know is Penn State has had some type of contact with: Former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, who was hired by Michigan State; James Madison coach Bob Chesney, who was hired by UCLA; former New York Giants coach Brian Daboll; and Cincinnati Bengals defensive coordinator and former Miami coach Al Golden, a Penn State alum who was in the mix for the job when Franklin was hired in January 2014.

If Penn State really wanted to hire Daboll, there is nothing stopping him from doing it right now. Or yesterday. Or last week. Or tomorrow.

Interim coach Terry Smith, a longtime Franklin assistant coach and former player for Joe Paterno, made a case to keep the job by leading the team to three straight victories and bowl eligibility and wearing a 409 button to display his loyalty to the late JoePa.

There has been chatter about Penn State having interest in Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz and Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea. Drinkwitz and Lea signed extensions last week.

There has been speculation about Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer possibly taking an off ramp to Penn State if the Crimson Tide stumbled down the stretch, but a source close to DeBoer said the coach has no interest in the Penn State job or leaving Tuscaloosa. Maybe that would have been different if Alabama had lost the Iron Bowl, eliminating the Crimson Tide from both the SEC Championship Game and the College Football Playoff. Alabama (10-2) plays Georgia in the SEC title game Saturday, in a good position to reach the CFP no matter what happens.

Tennessee’s Josh Heupel was rumored as a potential mystery candidate, but that appeared to be Vols fan fiction.

Sitake’s name is the only one that has really gained enough traction over the past week or so. So much so that he was asked about it during a teleconference previewing the Big 12 title game against Texas Tech.

“I’m all about the Big 12 championship and keeping our team focused on that. So I’m going to avoid all the distractions,” Sitake said Monday.

A person briefed on the search told The Athletic that Sitake is among a small group of candidates Penn State is considering. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the school was not making its internal moves public.

It certainly looks as if Penn State is in no rush to hire its next coach.

Even after LSU pulled Kiffin out of Ole Miss and kept him away from Florida, none of the subsequent SEC hires have been particularly surprising. Same goes for just about every other Power 4 job.

Maybe Penn State’s next coach will come from one of the names listed above, but for several weeks the vibe in the industry has been that if there is one school that could make a truly surprising hire, it’s Penn State.

Is this becoming a problem?

Yes, though how big a problem depends on how much value you put in the transfer portal era on one high school signing class.

The early signing period for high school recruits is Wednesday.

Penn State is hoping that Smith, who is an ace recruiter and would probably be a good guy for the next coach to try to retain, can keep a reputable class together. It’s not looking great. Penn State’s class is down to just six verbal commitments.