Penn State football has a new head coach! It may have taken Pat Kraft a couple of months, cost us a recruiting class, and ended with a stranger-than-fiction leaked audio scandal destined for memetic infamy, but Penn State’s AD got his man in former Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell. The guys react to Campbell’s introductory press conference – expanding on their thoughts from The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show and adding Brandon’s perspective – and then consider what comes next on a roller coaster ride that (with roster retention, staff changes, a bowl game, and the transfer portal all looming) may be closer to its beginning than its end.

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I’ve always hated the term “home-run hire” when it applies to coaches (or anyone else, really).

Sure, I suppose it’s better than a double hire or a single hire or a ground into double play hire, but my problem with it is anyone can hit a home run. Even the 175-pound second baseman gets a fat pitch now and then and pulls it over the fence.

If we are going to stick with a baseball analogy, I’d argue it’s better to have an ace hire than a home-run hire. Aces make it tough on the whole lineup. They compensate for a lack of defense or a competent bullpen or run support. And aces travel—they’re good in any ballpark, in any weather, against any style of offense. Keep your home-run hires. The aces are the guys who determine your ceiling and your floor.

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Is it gonna be Kalani Sitake? Jeff Brohm? Some shadowy mystery candidate? And whoever it ends up being, will that guy actually have a roster left to coach by the time he gets here? As we all sit on increasingly uncomfortable pins and needles awaiting resolution of Penn State’s marathon head coaching search, the guys ponder whether Pat Kraft ever really had a plan at all and try to tie up some other loose ends that will still have relevance even if someone gets hired before you get a chance to listen.