{"id":850822,"date":"2026-04-03T05:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/850822\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T05:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:48:16","slug":"terry-smith-says-its-been-a-great-journey-after-serving-as-penn-states-interim-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/850822\/","title":{"rendered":"Terry Smith says it’s been a “great journey” after serving as Penn State’s interim coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Terry Smith took over as the interim head coach at Penn State<\/a> last fall, it was a bit of a roller coaster ride for the Monroeville native who said that it’s been a “great journey” for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An abysmal start to the 2025 season last fall led to Penn State firing then head coach James Franklin and promoting Smith on an interim basis.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

“To take over at Penn State at that moment, it was a difficult situation, but I embraced it ” Smith said. “The first couple weeks, it took me, I guess it was like riding a bike. It took me a couple of weeks or a couple spins of the bike to get settled back into being in charge of everything.”<\/p>\n

Terry Smith hadn’t been in charge of a football program in over a decade, dating to back when he was the head coach at Gateway High School.<\/a><\/p>\n

But much like he did at his high school alma mater, Smith turned around Penn State’s fortunes<\/a> and by the end of the season, both fans and players were publicly advocating for him to be the next head coach in University Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"COLLEGE<\/p>\n

EAST LANSING, MI – NOVEMBER 15: Penn State Nittany Lions interim head coach Terry Smith is hoisted up on the shoulders of a pair of his players following a college football game between the Michigan State Spartans and Penn State Nittany Lions on November 15, 2025 at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, MI.<\/p>\n

Adam Ruff\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“You know, they were chanting my name in the stadium and it was like something out of a movie,” Smith said. “I’m almost speechless in it. It’s so humbling to know so many people love you and care for you and genuinely want good things to happen for you.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smith said he just wanted to make Penn State proud and the university community “showed a lot of love back.”<\/p>\n

When Penn State hired Matt Campbell<\/a> as the team’s new head coach, Smith showed love back to the Nittany Lions by choosing to stay with the program.<\/p>\n

Smith also stayed at Penn State for family reasons. His daughter Haley has Down syndrome, but is thriving while splitting time between Pittsburgh and State College.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Just last week, as a family we spoke at the Pittsburgh Down Syndrome Association gala<\/a>,” Smith said. “Haley spoke, my wife spoke, and I spoke. It was for Down syndrome on 321 Day, which is Down syndrome day.”<\/p>\n

“It’s just the experiences that we’re getting here,” Smith added. “This is the right place and the right fit for me and my family.”<\/p>\n

While he won’t be a head coach this fall, Smith said he learned an important lesson from last year’s life adventure.<\/p>\n

“I learned that I could do it at this level,” Smith said. “I’m really proud of that and it’s just been a great journey for myself.”<\/p>\n

Smith was quick to point out that he’s happy to be working with Matt Campbell, who has brought a breath of fresh air to the program<\/a> and has Penn State feeling good about its chances going into the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Terry Smith took over as the interim head coach at Penn State last fall, it was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[331,7,49,62429,48,49148],"class_list":{"0":"post-850822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-college-sports","12":"tag-ncaa-football","13":"tag-penn-state-university"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116339207283897683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}