Penn State HC Terry Smith breaks down in tears, calls current role at PSU ‘humbling’
Smith expressed deep pride and appreciation for his team and for the opportunity he’s been given at PSU.
Terry Smith made it through almost half of his weekly press conference before his voice finally gave out. The interim head coach began with box-score details and coaching points, but as the questions shifted to what this moment meant to him (after securing his first win against Michigan State 28-10), the football talk gave way to something else. Smith paused, wiped his face, and apologized. Then he tried to explain what it feels like to be carried off the field after your first win as Penn State’s head coach and then flooded with hundreds of messages from everyone who ever believed in you.
From Franklin’s firing to Smith’s opportunity
A month ago, James Franklin dominated the headlines. Penn State fired its longtime head coach on Oct. 12, ending a 12-year run that included a Big Ten title, a College Football Playoff berth and regular top-10 recruiting classes, but also a long trail of missed opportunities in marquee games. The decision came after a 3–3 start that featured losses to previously winless UCLA and Northwestern and a rising chorus of “Fire Franklin” chants inside Beaver Stadium.
With Franklin gone, associate head coach and corners coach Terry Smith was the one asked to hold the locker room together. A former Nittany Lion receiver, a key recruiter and a steady voice on Franklin’s staff since 2014, Smith was promoted to interim head coach for the rest of the season.
His debut was rough. Penn State blew a fourth-quarter lead at Iowa. Then came a trip to No. 1 Ohio State and a heartbreaking home loss to unbeaten Indiana. By the time the Nittany Lions arrived in East Lansing to face Michigan State, they had dropped six straight and were staring at a lost season.
Saturday’s 28–10 win over the Spartans felt like hitting a reset button. Ethan Grunkemeyer threw two touchdown passes to Devonte Ross. Kaytron Allen ran for a career-high 181 yards and two scores. Penn State rushed for 240 yards, held Michigan State to 1 of 12 on third down and dominated time of possession by nearly 15 minutes.
For Smith, it was more than a victory. It was proof that the locker room still cared and that he deserved his title.
Building a team identity in the middle of a chaotic season
Smith opened his presser like a veteran head coach. He laid out the four keys he gave the team before Michigan State. Dominate the line of scrimmage. Play with passion and pride. Get Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen a combined 30-plus touches. Pressure the quarterback.
Penn State hit every one. Singleton and Allen combined for 40 touches and over 200 yards. The defense produced five sacks. The offense closed the game with a nine-minute fourth-quarter drive where they did not throw a single pass. That is not just a clean Saturday. That is a blueprint for domination.
“In the last few weeks, you’ve really seen a different approach or style of play,” Smith said. He pointed to the offensive line walking into the media room together after the win as a literal picture of who he wants Penn State to be. The new identity is not complicated. Run the ball. Control the line of scrimmage. Let Jim Knowles turn up the heat with pressure packages that offenses “do not have an answer for.”
He also made it clear that this team has not checked out. Smith brought up a veteran player already asking about bowl-practice dates because he is assuming they will “win these two games” and wants to make sure a family event does not conflict. In a sport where opt-outs and transfer-portal exits are now baked into November, that kind of question matters.
“These guys are dialed in,” Smith said. “They are playing their hearts out. There is no dissension. There is no guys looking the other way.”
‘It’s just humbling’
Then the press conference shifted in tone. Smith was asked about the response he received after that first win. He laughed about juggling two phones and scrolling through nearly a thousand messages and DMs. Then he stopped.
“I have been reached out to [by] basically every person I have ever known in my entire life,” he said, before his voice cracked. “People are super proud of me and, you know, it just, I get, it is really humbling for me.”
He tried to gather himself, then apologized to the room.
“It’s just humbling,” Smith said. “It’s just humbling sitting in this seat.”
Smith talked about his father, who graduated from Penn State in 1968. About growing up in Aliquippa, a western Pennsylvania town he described as “not a very nice place.” About how his dad’s degree moved the family to Monroeville and opened doors that would not have existed otherwise.
“This place has done so much for me and my family,” Smith said. “I think we have nine or ten family members that have Penn State degrees. I think we have three that are students now. This place is special. It is amazing. I just want to give back to it. I just want to make sure I am holding my end up of the bargain and putting out a team that everyone can be proud of.”
Coaching for the job in real time
Athletic director Pat Kraft has already said Smith will be considered for the permanent role. Smith told reporters he has not had any formal conversations yet, and he does not sound interested in campaigning through sound bites. “My interview is every day that I am operating in this seat,” he said.
On the field, that means more of what we saw in East Lansing. An offensive identity anchored in Allen and Singleton, an offensive line that wants the smoke, and a defense that plays on the other side of the line of scrimmage. Off the field, it means convincing veterans not to opt out, convincing underclassmen to stay through the coaching search and convincing recruits that the standard in Happy Valley is not changing, even if the name on the head-coach line eventually does.
Saturday night against Nebraska, Smith will walk out at Beaver Stadium for senior night, surrounded by a class that helped deliver the winningest three-year stretch in school history and the program’s first Playoff appearance, but is now trying to salvage a season that went sideways.
It might not look like the moment he once imagined. It might not be permanent. But as he sits behind the microphone, trying to put the last month into words, the message is clear: For Smith, this is not just a job audition. It’s a lifetime of work being appreciated in full.
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