If Penn State poaching Jim Knowles wasn't enough, reports are out that Brian Hartline is up for the Penn State head coaching job.
Everything that has unfolded in college football this past weekend is a story that screenwriters in Hollywood would have dreamed up.
The Penn State Nittany Lions are limping into Columbus to take on the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday. This game, prior to the start of the season, was shaping up to be a top-5 matchup.
Unfortunately for fans, the week 10 battle has lost its luster, from that perspective.
However, Penn State employs the most recent Ohio State defensive coordinator in Jim Knowles, and now, rumors are swirling that they are very interested in Ohio State's current offensive coordinator, Brian Hartline, to be their next head coach.
While it still remains as rumors at this point, where there is smoke, there is typically fire in college football.
Hartline is widely considered as the best position coach in college football and the best recruiter in college football. For nearly a decade, he has fielded the best wide receiver corps in the country. Names such as Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison Jr., Terry McLaurin, Emeka Egbuka, Carnell Tate, and Jeremiah Smith are all Buckeyes thanks to recruitment and coaching from Hartline.
That short list of names are just the ones who were elite. There is an entire collection of guys who maybe didn't make it at the NFL level but were elite college players, including Parris Campbell, KJ Hill, and Jameson Williams, who finished his college career at Alabama.
Each of those players owes their careers to Hartline's work with them while in Columbus.
Simply put, this hire would be exactly what Penn State is missing, and it would be a horrible nightmare for the Buckeyes.
The Canton, Ohio native graduated from Ohio State in 2008, as he decided to forego his final year of eligibility and enter his name into the 2009 NFL Draft.
Hartline was selected in the fourth round by the Miami Dolphins, where he spent six seasons before his final year playing for the Cleveland Browns in 2015. After one year away from the game, he became a quality control assistant for the Buckeyes on their 2017 staff, just one year before head coach Ryan Day took over the reigns.
In his second year with the program, he was promoted to become the wide receivers coach and didn't look back.
2025 is the first season that he has had his hands on the controls of the offense. As offensive coordinator, Hartline has steered the ship and has seen his fair share of ups and downs as a play caller. The bottom line is that the Buckeyes are winning, and they have two Heisman Trophy candidates on their offense.
At this point, these are just rumors, but they absolutely add another layer of intrigue to a game on Saturday that already has all of the goods in it. Brian Hartline, head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, has an awkward feel with it, unless you are a Penn State fan.