Blue White Illustrated

LAST WORD TIM OWEN | OWEN.TIM.BWI@ G M A I L . C O M For better or for worse N ittany Lion fans, you can breathe easy. Bill O'Brien is sticking around. It might only be for one more year, because if we've learned anything from his recent public comments, it's that he has somewhat of a crush on the NFL. But that's OK. You can still breathe easy. Penn State needs O'Brien for only one more year. After that – the NCAAimposed "free agency" period, mainly – Penn State can hop back on the coaching carousel and find its next leader, if need be, and O'Brien can follow his career goals, if that's what they are. I'm not saying this will happen, nor that it should happen, but it certainly could. And if it does, Penn State football will be just fine – especially if O'Brien wants to advance his career. We're no longer in the era of 50year coaching tenures – a fact O'Brien emphasized recently. "I won't be coaching for 47 more years," he said. "I will not be coaching when I'm 80 years old." We're in an age in which climbing the coaching ranks can be just as important to the coach as climbing the depth chart is to his players. Perform at your best, and opportunities will present themselves. So in bettering his resume – and in turn reportedly interviewing with a couple of NFL teams – O'Brien is bettering Penn State's football program, too. Long term, he's shown that, in the midst of NCAA sanctions, a coach can still display his worth at Penn State. He's also shown, through his recent behind-the-scenes negotiations, that the university is willing to cooperate with a head coach for the improvement of the program. Short term, he's proven that his offensive philosophies are desired at the NFL level. That makes for an appealing pitch: Come to Penn State, submerse yourself in an pro-style playbook and start building your own NFL resume. Doesn't sound like a bad deal. But then there's the opposing view. Why would a top-end recruit choose Penn State when its head coach might bolt for the NFL in a few years? It's certainly a concern, but here's something to bear in mind: For at least the last decade of Joe Paterno's coaching tenure, recruits chose Penn State with the understanding that he might not be around for their entire career. Why did players continue to take that leap of faith? For some, the opportunity to play for a Hall of Fame coach entered into it. But mostly, recruits were picking Penn State because it was Penn State. And as long as O'Brien continues his success, continues graduating his players and continues to improve the program, then Penn State will continue to be Penn State. And as long as he's doing those things, he'll find himself on the "short list" for the next NFL head coaching vacancy. "If people weren't talking about Bill O'Brien," acting athletic director Dave Joyner said, "then we made a lousy hire. The fact that people are talking about how great he is and what he can do at other places, to me, that's a real compliment." Jim Harbaugh, the current coach of the San Francisco 49ers, provides a point of comparison. He took over a one-win Stanford program that had been struggling in the Pac-10, and in his first season he led the Cardinal to upsets of Southern Cal and California. He also secured a verbal commitment from four-star quarterback Andrew Luck. After falling one win shy of a bowl bid during his second season, Harbaugh became one of the hottest coaching commodities in the NFL. He reportedly interviewed with the New York Jets in January 2009 before announcing that he would stay at Stanford. In the minds of recruits, media and NFL coaches, his stock soared. Harbaugh and Luck went on to form one of the best quarterbackcoach combos in college football during the next two seasons. Harbaugh continued hauling in four-star recruits, and he capped his tenure with a 12-1 season and a blowout win over Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl. When he finally jumped to the NFL, he was able to leave Stanford in the capable hands of David Shaw and with a stable full of talent. And guess what? Recruits are still choosing Stanford because, well, it's Stanford. Both Harbaugh and Shaw have brought the best out in the Cardinal. That's what O'Brien is attempting to do with Penn State, any way he can. Because of the NCAA's bowl sanctions, the program seemed destined to disappear from the spotlight once its regular season ended, but O'Brien kept the Nittany Lions in the news. It might not have been by design, but with his name being tossed around by NFL insiders, Penn State's offense seemed more relevant during bowl season than, say, Purdue's. The Boilermakers fell to Oklahoma State, 58-14, in the Heart of Dallas Bowl. There's a good chance O'Brien's name will be tossed around by those same insiders again next year. That was the case with Harbaugh. As long as O'Brien continues to field a competitive team at Penn State, his name will be brought up nearly every time a job opens. Penn State should only hope.

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