Few people, if any, could’ve accurately predicted Penn State’s tumultuous 2025 campaign in the preseason.
Even those within the walls of the Lasch Building were anticipating another run to the College Football Playoff, including a shot at conference and national championships. With a talented and veteran-laden roster, plus some splashy offseason additions, the Nittany Lions were primed for a title chase.
Six games in, the team sat at 3-3, playoff hopes crushed, sustaining two of the three largest upsets by point spread in college football this season. Adding both injury and insult, starting quarterback Drew Allar was ruled out for the season with a broken left ankle, and days later, head coach James Franklin was fired.
According to junior safety King Mack, three meetings help summarize the ups and downs of the season.
Terry Smith
Penn State’s interim head coach held a team meeting after the Nittany Lions lost to Iowa 25-24 in Kinnick Stadium, falling to 3-4.
Smith has been praised endlessly by players and coaches for his ability to motivate the team, using analogies like “IF” shirts against the Hawkeyes, chopping redwood trees against Ohio State and sharpening a pencil against Michigan State.
While the team lost three games under Smith’s direction, it lived up to his promise that “no one will ever question a Terry Smith coached team that they don’t play hard.”
His message after the loss was simple.
“We’re all going to have kids someday and be a parent,” Mack recalled. “How would you feel coming back to your alma mater and telling your kid, ‘yeah, we lost four games and lost the rest of the whole season. You know, we just gave up.’ No one wants to tell their kid that. Everyone in the locker room, we changed our attitude. We changed how we approached everything.”
Pat Kraft
In a leaked audio conversation, Penn State’s athletic director addressed a group of players about the ongoing head coaching search, a meeting Mack attended.
In it, Kraft took jabs at Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon and Iowa, while also addressing his own team’s struggles. Mack said the leaked audio helps illustrate one of the major issues with this year’s team.
“That shows the lack of leadership and accountability, because the fact that someone in that room would jeopardize everyone, because anything could have been said in that meeting and could have jeopardized anyone’s future or career, I feel like that’s part of the selfishness,” Mack said.
Matt Campbell
The most recent meeting came one-on-one with Penn State’s newly hired head coach. The two recently had an honest conversation, in which both sides shared their perspectives on how the season was derailed, from the inside and from an outside view.
“It was a great conversation,” Mack said. “He’s very honest; he’s straightforward. He sees where we went wrong. His job is to get it fixed as soon as possible, and to use all the seniors as one big group to help us fix all those issues as well.”
While Mack was noncommittal about his future with the program, he credited Campbell for an open and truthful dialogue, in which they attempted to identify the issues plaguing this year’s squad.
“Some lack of leadership, some lack of having people buy in,” Mack said. “Not having all 100 people locked in and focused on one thing at one time, it’s hard to be successful when people aren’t all one on one mission. He’s seen that, and he said it’s his job to fix that.”
Mack also referenced getting underclassmen more playing time. While he didn’t specify any names, it’s likely wide receiver Koby Howard falls into that category.
“I feel like we have guys on the team who could have made a big impact this year, and because they were so young, I don’t think they understood how much of an impact they could have made.” Mack said.
The solution to changing that culture is cleaning house. That process has begun, with many of the team’s coordinators (Jim Knowles, Andy Kotelnicki, Stan Drayton, Marques Hagans, Danny O’Brien, Ty Howle and Phil Trautwein) heading to new schools.
Two players, tight end Joey Schlaffer and cornerback Elliot Washington II, have declared intent to enter the transfer portal, with others likely to follow. Meanwhile, Campbell has begun implanting some of his own guys, including coaches and recruits.
“He said, straight up, he doesn’t want anyone who doesn’t want to be here,” Mack said. “So we had a team meeting, and they made it very clear, if you don’t want to be here, the door is open.”
