Former Miami head coach Manny Diaz is drawing early buzz for the Penn State vacancy just days after the Nittany Lions dismissed James Franklin. Penn State announced a leadership change Sunday with associate head coach Terry Smith named interim coach, and multiple hot board lists have included Diaz among potential candidates given his ties to Happy Valley and recent success at Duke.
Diaz's Penn State connections are a big part of the rumors. He coordinated the Nittany Lions' defense in 2022 and 2023, when PSU won the Rose Bowl and produced one of the nation's most disruptive units (Big Ten-leading 104 tackles for loss and 42 sacks in 2023). Those two seasons cemented relationships inside the program that make him a natural name to surface in speculation. The work he did at Penn State also helped him gain another head coaching position, this time at Duke.
Through two seasons as the head coach for the Blue Devils, he is 13-6 overall and 8-3 in ACC play after a 9–4 debut in 2024 that included wins over all three in-state rivals and a Gator Bowl appearance. His track record is solid, but it remains to be seen whether he is a serious candidate for the job.
Miami fans know the book on Diaz's first tenure running a Power program. He went 21-15 in three seasons at UM (2019-21) and finished No. 22 in the final AP Top 25 in 2020 before the school moved on in December 2021. That combination of a ranked season and uneven results still defines how many assess his candidacy for a job of Penn State's magnitude. The Nittany Lions are assumed to be in search for a bigger name, and a lot of coaches around college football will be interested, even if they are at a top Power 4 program.
As for the Penn State search itself, a wide field of names have been thrown around ranging from Nebraska's Matt Rhule to Indiana's Curt Cignetti.
Even with Diaz rehabilitating his stock with wins at Duke and retaining Penn State relationships, it is presumed that Rhule, Cignetti, Marcus Freeman from Notre Dame, Lane Kiffin from Ole Miss, etc. would be called first.