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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Robert Shields covers Penn State Football for Nittany Central. As a Penn State graduate, Robert has covered Penn State football since 2019, but had been a fan of the Nittany Lions for well over a decade. During his undergraduate education, Robert was a manager in the athletic department of a division III school, working in various aspects of athletic management at football, soccer, baseball, basketball, and lacrosse games.

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Associated Press

Auburn football became the 13th college program to let go of its head coach this year, as Hugh Freeze was let go by the university Sunday afternoon.

The Tigers are also the fourth SEC school with a head coaching vacancy, joining Arkansas, Florida and LSU.

Currently, 12 schools have head coaching vacancies after Kent State promoted interim coach Mark Carney to head coach on Oct. 30 following Kenni Burns’ dismissal after two seasons.

With the many candidates surrounding one of the most chaotic coaching carousels in recent memory, here’s how AL.com ranks all the current openings and where Auburn sits amongst it all.

LSU

LSU let go of former coach Brian Kelly Sunday, Oct. 26 after the Tigers 49-24 blowout loss to Texas A&M the day before.

LSU’s three previous head coaches before Kelly all won national championships (Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron), putting this program at the top when it comes to A-list Power 5 jobs.

With LSU also moving on from Athletic director Scott Woodward, getting both hires right will be pivotal for the state of Louisiana.

Florida

For the fifth time since Urban Meyer retired in 2010, Florida is hiring a new head football coach.

Things never came together under former coach Billy Napier, as he finished with a final record of 22-23 in Gainesville.

Names such as Lane Kiffin and Marcus Freeman are already linked to this program coaching search, indicating the high value placed on this opening.

Penn State

After James Franklin’s tenure of 11-plus years at Penn State came to an end, no coaching job around the country was safe.

Although things fell apart quickly for Franklin, Penn State made significant investments in facilities and NIL to maintain its competitive edge over other programs.

With early targets like Indiana’s Curt Cignetti and Nebraska’s Matt Rhule signing contract extensions, Penn State is a program that’ll still aim high.

Auburn

Former Auburn coach Hugh Freeze blew his second chance coaching in the SEC after failing to restore Auburn as a championship winning program.

With Auburn being a program set up to compete in the NIL/portal era, this opening is just as competitive as the other SEC openings.

After Freeze finished his tenure on the Plains 15-19, Auburn is ensuring its next hire is a guaranteed winner as the SEC enters its nine-game conference schedule era.

Arkansas

Sam Pittman ended the Razorbacks’ 20-game SEC losing streak in 2020 and won nine games in 2021. However, he was fired after six seasons when he failed to get over the seven-win hump in the last four years.

Bobby Petrino is the school’s most successful coach in recent history and is currently serving as interim coach for the Razorbacks.

Athletic director Hunter Yurachek, who landed John Calipari to coach the men’s basketball team, is expected to be aggressive in this current football hire.

Oklahoma State

Mike Gundy, who was the winningest coach in Oklahoma State history and led his alma mater to nine AP top-20 finishes between 2008 and 2021.

However, after a winless Big 12 campaign last season, Gundy’s era ended in 2025 following the team’s first home loss to Tulsa since 1951 and a 69-3 loss to Oregon the next week.

Now with the program in full reset mode, Oklahoma State has some definite pluses, including a history of winning in the Big-12.

UCLA

Former coach DeShaun Foster could not sustain the same success he had as the Bruins running back coach.

Even after signing transfer quarterback Nico Iamaleava, UCLA started the season losing to Utah, UNLV and New Mexico, ending Foster’s run at the helm.

This will be a key hire for UCLA, as they are still finding its identity in the Big Ten conference.

Virgina Tech

Brent Bry entered this season on the hot seat after the Hokies finished 6-6 in the last two years.

Virgina Tech started 2025 0-3 for the first time since 1987, leading to Bry’s exit.

With Athletics director Whit Babcock job not all the way safe either, it seems like Blacksburg, Virgina, is still shaking back from the post Frank Beamer era.

Stanford

Currently led by former NFL coach Frank Reich as its interim coach, Stanford is conducting a search for a replacement following the 2025 season.

As Andrew Luck sits as the team’s general manager, it’ll be no surprise if Stanford builds its staff up like an NFL one or just promotes Reich.

Oregon State

Trent Bray got the boot after leading the beavers to the worst start since 1991, starting the 2025 season 0-7.

Bray was promoted after Jonathan Smith left for Michigan State following the 2023 season.

UAB

The Trent Dilfer experiment failed tremendously at UAB after never coaching in college.

Dilfer was canned after UAB lost its third straight game, 53-33 at Florida Atlantic, to fall to 2-4 on the season. He finished with a 9-21 record in three seasons.

Colorado State

Jay Norvell came to Colorado State from Nevada, where he guided teams to four consecutive bowl appearances.

Colorado State has one winning season since 2017, which was 2024 where they went 8-5 and reached the Arizona Bowl.

Norvell was out after the Rams fell to 2-5, as he finished 18-26 in four seasons.