Penn State AD Pat Kraft Should Be Fired for Botching the Franklin Firing and Coaching Search
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "Penn State Football: A ‘Krafted’ Fumble | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." October 21, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
The author says Penn State's athletic director fired a successful coach without a clear plan, ran a messy search, missed the obvious choice, and now has a struggling team and weakened recruiting. Since he held the old coach to a higher standard, the author says he should be held to it too, and should lose his job.
Conclusion
Athletic Director Pat Kraft bears responsibility for Penn State football's current dysfunction and should be fired, because he failed to meet the same higher standard of performance he used to justify firing James Franklin.
Premises
- Kraft fired James Franklin without an apparent game plan, and the firing was poorly communicated, creating confusion among players, recruits, alumni, donors, and the media.
- Kraft discarded a program that had reached the College Football Playoff semifinals the previous season, and the 54-day coaching search was chaotic, with names floated and withdrawn and agents using Penn State for leverage.
- Kraft let Bob Chesney, a Central Pennsylvania native and the supposedly obvious choice, go to UCLA, and eventually settled on Matt Campbell, who was not on the initial candidate list.
- The prolonged search damaged recruiting: the 2025 transfer portal class ranked 41st, and a dozen 2026 recruits followed Franklin to Virginia Tech.
- Under Campbell, Penn State has lost four consecutive Big Ten games despite what was billed as the easiest conference schedule, so the results fall short of the promised higher standard.
- Kraft invoked a higher standard of excellence to fire Franklin, and that standard must apply equally to the athletic director, whose job is to control the narrative and execute a plan.
Assumptions
- The athletic director, rather than the coach, players, or circumstances, is primarily responsible for the outcomes of the search and the team's current performance.
- Chesney was clearly attainable and would clearly have been a better hire than Campbell.
- Short-term results (four straight losses in Campbell's first season) are a valid measure of the quality of the hiring process.
- The recruiting and transfer-portal setbacks were caused by Kraft's handling of the firing, not by other factors such as the NIL landscape or Franklin's own influence.
- Penn State's stature means an AD should be held to a very high standard of performance.
- A better AD would have produced a better outcome; firing Kraft would improve the situation rather than add more instability.