Boiling Over!

Kalani Sitake: Because Penn State’s Coaching Search Needed Another Plot Twist

Let’s start with the obvious: I know absolutely nothing about what Pat Kraft and the Old Main Brain Trust are doing. I don’t have clandestine access to Kraft’s burner phone, I’m not hiding in a ventilation duct above James Franklin’s old office, and I sure as hell don’t get my intel from the same YouTube “insiders” who think NIL is a cryptocurrency.

But at least I’m honest about not knowing a damn thing. That already puts me miles ahead of 90% of Facebook.

Speaking of which, the self-appointed sages of social media need to shut their festering pieholes for five minutes. Every basement-dwelling Nostradamus thinks they’ve cracked the Penn State coaching code because they once attended a Blue-White Game drunk. Their “insights” are so wildly incorrect that ChatGPT could be trained solely on their garbage and become dumber.

Take this Facebook guru who told me to “grow up” because I dared to question Saint Terry Smith’s coronation. Apparently, if you don’t accept his opinion as gospel, you’re the problem. The man wouldn’t even admit that he had an opinion — no, no, it was simply “the truth,” as revealed to him via divine revelation or possibly a cracked Magic 8-Ball.

You will find none of that unhinged, chest-thumping certainty here. Everything I write is my opinion — glorious, well-earned, meticulously sharpened opinion — and you’re welcome to call me out anytime. Unlike the Facebook prophets, I’m not afraid of nuance, debate, or reality.

Fans Don’t Know Shit (Film at 11)

I’ll say it plainly: fans don’t know jack-shit about coaching searches. Not current players, not former players, not the faculty, not the alumni, and especially not the drunk guy in Section WC who thinks Jimmy Sexton is the starting quarterback for Oregon.

None of these people have the faintest clue what’s actually happening behind the scenes, but boy do they love hearing themselves talk.

Fans want Terry Smith because he “feels right,” meaning he reminds them of a sepia-toned memory of the Paterno era when milk was 37 cents and nobody transferred unless they flunked an Econ midterm. They want Smith… but they also want a national title. Fans want continuity… but also a coaching overhaul. They want “success with honor”… in a modern NIL death-match where boosters are dumping more money on 18-year-olds than tech startups spend on burn rate.

Let Us Show You How to Run the Program, Because WE KNOW!

But sure, let’s give Terry “a two-year contract to see what he can do,” says the guy currently watching the tow-truck driver hooking up his repossessed 2009 Camaro on the fifth unpaid month of an 84-month loan.

Another social media intellectual claims Kraft is “hesitating because he knows fans want Terry.” Right. Pat Kraft — a man whose future employment actually hinges on this decision — is supposedly steering the ship based on the emotional whims of dudes who couldn’t manage a peewee flag football roster without getting into a fistfight with the snack parent.

Then, there’s the guy who drops a name — and nothing else.

“Urban Meyer”

I guess the purpose of those terse comments is so later on he can point to the one name he got right, after all the other misses dropped strategically elsewhere in the same comment stream, and say, “I told you so!”

“Lou Holtz”
“Lincoln Riley”
“Doc Rivers” — Oops, wrong sport! Sorry, my bad. Meant to drop that in the NBA thread. Does anyone know how to delete a comment????

Chesney to UCLA — Humanity Shocked to Discover We Know Nothing

Our supposed front-runner, Bob Chesney, is reportedly off to UCLA. So much for our clairvoyance here at Nittany Turkey HQ.

Now watch social media invent reasons why he didn’t pick Penn State:

• “PSU lowballed him.”
• “UCLA has beaches!”
• “He hates the color blue.”
• “Chip Kelly told him the secret of life.”

It’s all crap. Nobody knows anything. If you flip a coin over a dumpster fire, you’ll get better accuracy.

Enter Kalani Sitake, Maybe, Possibly, Perhaps, If the Moon Is Right — OR NOT!!!

Briefly emerging as the newest, hottest name in the coaching search fiasco is BYU head coach Kalani Sitake, who has allegedly been chatting with Pat Kraft for months… or for five minutes… or maybe he’s never even heard of Penn State and thinks we’re still in the Big Ten East.

Rumors had a private jet heading from Provo, Utah to State College last Saturday night. The Facebook Rumor-Monger-In-Charge posted a FlightAware flight plan as absolute proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sitake was being hired at the airport at 1:30 AM.

Being a cynic, I demand to see the flight plan for the bus from campus to the airport carrying the two dozen HR clerks necessary to make that happen, along with Dr. Neeli Bendapudi to swear him in on the tarmac, and the tattoo artist to emblazon the Nittany Lion logo on Sitake’s expansive ass cheek before he can climb the boarding stairs and hie himself back off to Provo.

Think that’s a bit fantastical? Well, Mateys, on Facebook, ridiculousness knows no bounds.

If that bus flight plan doesn’t exist, someone will post a fake one.

So, what the hell do we know?

What we do know is that Sitake:

• Is a Mormon.
• Is of Tongan heritage.
• And — shocking twist — can actually coach.

Naturally, this has triggered the Facebook Mensa chapter, which insists that “anyone can coach in the Big 12.” These are the same people who believe that offensive coordinators don’t matter, the forward pass is optional, and NIL is a deep-state conspiracy.

The only thing anyone can say for certain: Pat Kraft isn’t betting his job on someone who can’t coach. That’s just common sense — which explains why it’s absent from 99% of fan commentary.

Wait! There’s Breaking News!

HOT FLASH!!! Oops. Sitake is staying at BYU — at least that’s what the semi-skilled pundits are currently reporting. One more flash in the pan assaying as fool’s gold.

BYU apparently felt they had a good thing going on there, despite the Facebook critics saying the Big 12 is bullshit and Sitake can’t coach, and despite Kraft allegedly making him an offer he could not refuse, an offer juicy enough to pry a dedicated Mormon family man out of Mormon Central.

The “information” I came across suggests that although the BYU administration couldn’t cough up the scratch to compete with Penn State, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and its vast army of parishioners went all out to retain their guy. Whether or not this is bullshit remains to be seen.

But what the hell — who on God’s green Earth, Mormon or otherwise, knows how serious a candidate for the Penn State job Sitake ever was?

So, never mind. Nothing to see here. Move right along.

Where Did All the Other Names Go?

Whatever happened to the trifecta of DeBoer, Daboll, and Da Bullshit?

Were they real candidates? Were they figments of Twitter’s collective fever dream? Did someone run their names through Madden, declare them “interested,” and call it a scoop?

Who the hell really knows?

One Facebook scholar confidently announced that “Penn State is only the 19th or 20th best job in college football.” Sure. And I’m the 19th or 20th best synchronized swimmer in Central Florida. Let’s all argue meaningless rankings based on absolutely nothing and declare victory because “everybody knows.”

What Have I Told You?

Absolutely nothing you didn’t already know.

But damn, it felt fantastic tearing into social media’s boundless stupidity. Sometimes the hot air has to escape, lest the pressure build up and I explode like a Rutgers punt returner.

And that — unlike everything on Facebook — is indisputably, delightfully true.