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Before Terry Smith returned to Penn State as an assistant coach in 2014, he spent one season as an assistant coach at Temple under Matt Rhule.
The Nittany Lions’ interim coach might have put the final nails in his old boss’s chances of replacing James Franklin with Saturday’s 37-10 romp, while continuing to bolster his own increasingly enticing case in the process.
Rhule, of course, is Pat Kraft’s GUY. They were both at Temple when Rhule led the Owls to back-to-back 10-win seasons, which is the NFL equivalent of leading the Cleveland Browns to two straight AFC North titles. That and his own ties to Penn State and State College were ostensibly enough to keep him on Kraft’s short list even as the Cornhuskers’ promising season began to leak oil and Rhule—like many other coaches who are likely sending Franklin and Jimmy Sexton Christmas cards this year—signed a two-year contract extension to stay in Lincoln through 2032.
