New favorite surges for Penn State job after receiving Nick Saban’s endorsement

ESPN personality Nick Saban | Nathan Giese/Avalanche-Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The college football coaching carousel reached maximum madness this past weekend. Six SEC schools hired new coaches, Lane Kiffin make another to-do out of betraying one powerhouse for another, and programs around the country are pairing off with new leadership. As the alterations reverberate down the spine of the sport, one high-profile power conference job remains wide open, and that's Penn State's.

The Nittany Lions arrived to the buffet first, firing James Franklin in the second week of October, but have taken by far the longest to decide on their dish of choice. As mentioned, half a dozen SEC jobs have come open and been filled since PSU decided to part with Franklin; Ole Miss and Kentucky needed less than one day to find their new coaches. For Penn State, the fall and now winter of '25 has been a long-enduring nightmare.

One of the best ways to track college football coaching searches this season has been through Kalshi's predictive trading market. While not a raw list of odds Vegas-style, Kalshi provides a market of coaching options for, say, the Penn State job, for real people to trade on. They list a "Yes" price for that person to be head coach and then also assign a probability based on the market behavior. So, the more people that trade on "Yes" for one coach to get a job, the higher his price and probability will become.

Kalshi's metrics have been interesting to track over the last nearly two months now in regards to the Penn State job. Guys like Kalani Sitake (BYU) and Eli Drinkwitz (Missouri) have led at times, Jeff Brohm (Louisville) and Brian Hartline (Ohio St. OC) have been consistent secondary options, and there's even been one NFL name lingering in the mix, Brian Daboll, since he was fired earlier this NFL season from the New York Giants.

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll (at the time) | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

Well, after a very public tug-of-war over Kalani Sitake kept him in Utah, Kalshi's market since shifted its momentum toward Daboll as the new favorite to land the job. Jeff Brohm bobbed in front for a minute and has steadily climbed in the market, but by Wednesday morning, Daboll surged ahead. In fact, the move even happened within an hour. At 6:21 a.m. ET, Brohm held a 23% chance of getting the job and Daboll was at 18%. By 6:58 a.m., Daboll had leapfrogged to a crazy 59% chance to get the job.

That escalation begs the question: What happened during the sunrise hours of Wednesday morning, Dec. 3 between Brian Daboll and Penn State? Perhaps we should ask the Kalshi traders. As of roughly 9 a.m. ET, Daboll still held a 45% vs. 21% lead over Jeff Brohm, which he maintained through much of the day.

Nick Saban urges Penn St. to hire Brian Daboll

Daboll is a long-time NFL mind. He's coached the Giants for the better part of the 2020s and before that was the offensive coordinator at Buffalo who first struck gold with a Josh Allen offense. He also worked under Bill Belichick in New England way back when and, just before joining Buffalo, spent a stint with Alabama and Nick Saban.

It's no wonder the Hall of Fame coach endorsed Daboll as a Nittany Lion when he first caught wind of the mutual interest. Here he was on the Pat McAfee Show discussing Daboll:

"He's a very good coach, he's a bright guy, he's a good recruiter, he relates well to the players, he's a good teacher, he's got a good offensive mind, he'll be able to put a good staff together," Saban listed off. "I think that would be an outstanding hire," the legendary coach added of a theoretical Brian Daboll fit at Penn State.