Penn State director of athletics Pat Kraft made it clear again Monday that he’s all in when it comes to pursuing national championships, most notably in football.
Whether it’s making defensive coordinator Jim Knowles the highest-paid assistant coach in college football or paying enough to keep returning several star players, Kraft wants his department to do what it can to help the Nittany Lions win.
“You don’t come to Penn State willy-nilly and say, ‘Let’s see what happens,’ ” Kraft said in his first public interview session with beat reporters. “We’re here to win national championships and we’re going to do it the right way. Yeah, I’m committed. It takes everybody.
“When it comes to football, we’re close. We’re going to keep going and keep going and keep going until we get to where we want to be.”
Under James Franklin, the Nittany Lions (13-3) set a school record for wins last season and won their first two College Football Playoff games before losing 27-24 last month to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, a national semifinal.
Since then, Penn State has replaced defensive coordinator Tom Allen by hiring Jim Knowles away from Ohio State, hired Stan Drayton to replace running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider and paid for several draft-eligible players to return in 2025.
Kraft said he didn’t hesitate when agreeing on a three-year, $9.1 million contract with Knowles, who’s considered one of the brightest defensive minds in the country. Knowles replaced Allen, who left shortly after the Orange Bowl to become defensive coordinator at Clemson.
“I’m going to get the best coordinators that we can,” he said. “The coordinators set the tone. It’s James’ team. James is the CEO. He has done a masterful job of building the best staff in the country. You have to pay market value, but we can afford it. Why would I short-change him?
“For me it was a no-brainer with Jim Knowles. We’re going to give ourselves the best chance to win.”
That includes paying star players such as Drew Allar, Nick Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Dani Dennis-Sutton and Zane Durant to return to Penn State for their fourth seasons instead of opting for the NFL draft.
“I think James has absolutely done it the right way,” Kraft said. “I think Ryan (Day) did a really good job at Ohio State. Trust your evaluation. Recruit the kids you want to recruit that fit your program and hold onto them. That’s why Ohio State won the national championship.
“They had some nice additions and we did the same, but your kids are your culture. The young men in our locker room are phenomenal.”
Some of the money to pay those returning star players will come from a settlement of the House vs. NCAA case. The settlement, which is expected to receive final approval April 7 from a federal judge, will mean that NCAA schools will be permitted to compensate their own student-athletes directly.
According to estimates, that means around $20-25 million in the 2025-26 academic year for the schools that decide to opt in.
“We have the ability to not only help our teams in the space of revenue sharing,” Kraft said, “but also put a lot of our student-athletes on scholarship if we do it right and raise the right amount of money. That is a huge advantage for us.
“I feel really good where we’re at. We can always be better.”
Meanwhile, Penn State’s Beaver Stadium is undergoing a $700 million renovation project that is scheduled to be completed before the 2027 football season.
Kraft warned that the stadium project will present challenges for the Blue-White Game on April 26. While temporary seats are being installed above the lower bowl on the west side, the east concourse is being doubled.
“The spring game is going to be a little interesting,” he said. “By interesting, I really don’t know what it’s going to look like.”
Kraft said the 7,400 temporary seats on the west side are being installed by the company that built Northwestern’s temporary football stadium next to Lake Michigan and the seating around the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale, the site of the Waste Management Open.
“Those are the folks who are doing the production,” he said. “With the temporary seating, we’ll be really, really close to capacity. I’m really, really happy with where we are.”
