{"id":469788,"date":"2025-12-25T00:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T00:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/469788\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T00:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T00:52:12","slug":"report-shares-why-penn-state-did-not-spend-a-ton-of-time-pursuing-kalen-deboer-mike-elko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/469788\/","title":{"rendered":"Report shares why Penn State did not spend ‘a ton of time’ pursuing Kalen DeBoer, Mike Elko"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penn State<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s head coaching search may have taken longer than expected, but the Nittany Lions ultimately landed their guy \u2014 Matt Campbell from Iowa State<\/a><\/strong>. According to a recent report from ESPN<\/a>, however, the search apparently featured a number of big-name college football candidates to replace James Franklin.<\/p>\n

These names included Alabama<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s Kalen DeBoer, Notre Dame<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s Marcus Freeman and Texas A&M<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s Mike Elko. All surfaced as \u201cpotential candidates,\u201d with Elko looked at as \u201cthe most realistic,\u201d given his ties to the region. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole time, we thought Elko was going to be the guy,\u201d one SEC coach told ESPN. \u201cThen he came off the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elko just finished an 11-2 season at Texas A&M, leading the Aggies to its first-ever College Football Playoff. His Aggies were undefeated for the first 13 weeks of the season while Penn State continued it\u2019s head coaching search. Texas A&M went on to extend his on Nov. 15. <\/p>\n

For DeBoer, he denied having interest in the Nittany Lions\u2019 job. Freeman was in the middle of leading Notre Dame to a 10-game win streak to lose the season. According to another ESPN source, Penn State \u201cnever spent a ton of time on those guys knowing their current situations.\u201d <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until early December that Penn State announced the hire of former Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell. The hire appears to have been well-received<\/a><\/strong> on social media and recruits alike<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s bringing to Happy Valley a resume that includes a 107\u201370 overall as a head coach. He built the Iowa State program from the ground up after a successful stint as Toledo\u2019s head coach. Starting with a 3-9 finish in his first year with the program, Campbell led the Cyclones to a program record five-straight bowl games. <\/p>\n

In 2024, Iowa State had its best season yet under Campbell. Leading the Cyclones to an 11-3 record, they came up just short of the College Football Playoff after losing to Arizona State<\/a><\/strong> in the Big 12 Championship game. They were ranked as high as No. 9 in the AP Poll last season.<\/p>\n

He is expected to mirror that success and then some as the Nittany Lions\u2019 new head coach, all while competing alongside the DeBoer\u2019s, Freeman\u2019s and Elko\u2019s at the forefront of college football. Campbell\u2019s effort is already underway in Happy Valley, and the product of it will be seen next fall. <\/p>\n

The first step \u2014 the NCAA transfer portal. Penn State was left with two signees in its 2025 recruiting class, so he\u2019ll be focused on bolstering his roster once it opens on Jan. 2. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penn State\u2018s head coaching search may have taken longer than expected, but the Nittany Lions ultimately landed their…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":469789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,105786,202036,163947,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-469788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-kalen-deboer-93-milbank-01","10":"tag-matt-campbell-98-perry","11":"tag-mike-elko-95-south-brunswick","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-ncaafootball","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}