Penn State Sports Magazine
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5 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M E D I T O R I A L M AT T H E R B M AT T. H E R B @ O N 3 . C O M I t gets harder to believe with each passing year, but there was a time not so long ago when one of the biggest complaints about the state of the Nit- tany Lion football program was that its coaches tended to stick around too long. For decades, Penn State was, de- pending on one's perspective, either a model of stability or a model of calci- fication. Often, that perspective de- pended on whether the Lions had won or lost the previous Saturday. Heading into the 2011 season, which would turn out to be Joe Paterno's last as head coach, the Nittany Lions' offensive and defensive coordina- tors had been on the job for six and 11 years, respectively. Both were in the midst of lengthy tenures, and if anything, the numbers undersold just how thoroughly steeped Galen Hall and Tom Bradley had been in Penn State's football culture. The two were Paterno-coached former PSU play- ers, and Bradley had never left, joining Paterno's staff as a graduate assistant in 1979. Three other Paterno proteges served as position coaches, with Dick Anderson handling the offensive line, Mike McQueary the wide receivers and Jay Paterno the quarterbacks. Whether by accident or by design, it was a staff built to hold together. These were coaches who were comfortable and professionally satisfied at Penn State. Hall, Anderson and linebackers coach Ron Vanderlinden had already been head coaches elsewhere and had gotten to the point where they weren't scrambling to reach the next rung in the career ladder. Few of their col- leagues seemed as though they were eager to leave, either. More than a dozen years have passed since that staff was disbanded, and times have changed. While Hall spent seven seasons on Penn State's staff, the average tenure of his six successors has been 23 games. Bradley's five succes- sors have lasted longer, but not a lot longer. Their average tenure has been 30 games. This, of course, is the nature of mod- ern college football. There's a lot of money chasing a relatively small pool of hot coaching candidates, driving up salaries and incentivizing coaches to change jobs more frequently than they might have done a generation ago. Also, the proliferation of social me- dia and message board communities has created an atmosphere in which every game feels like a referendum on whether the entire staff ought to clean out its desks. Disgruntled fans don't make the decisions, but they do shape the media discourse around their pro- grams, and that can't help but bleed into the thinking of the people who do have the power to hire and fire. None of these forces are going to abate in the years ahead, so perhaps the best that schools like Penn State can hope to do is to lose coordinators and position coaches to upward mobility rather than to impatience. That's cer- tainly been the case with its past two defensive bosses. Brent Pry left to become head coach at Virginia Tech following a 2021 sea- son in which PSU ranked seventh in the country in scoring defense. Pry's Hokies struggled in his first season but appear to be on the upswing after a 7-6 campaign in 2023 that ended with a 41-20 romp over No. 23 Tulane in the Military Bowl. Pry's successor, Manny Diaz, also headed south, taking over Duke's pro- gram in December after helping the Nittany Lions finish second in the country in total defense and third in scoring defense during the 2023 season. Following Diaz's exit, James Franklin hired former Indiana head coach Tom Allen to take charge of the defense. At age 53, Allen is four years older than Diaz. And yet, if all goes well over the next few years, he'll still be young enough to take charge of an ACC foot- ball program in 2026 or '27, adhering to the established career path for former Nittany Lion defensive coordinators. The situation on offense is more fraught. Three of Franklin's first five offensive coordinators were fired, including the two who preceded the newly hired Andy Kotelnicki. Only one of Penn State's offensive coordinators under Franklin has developed into an in-demand Power Five head coach- ing candidate during his time in State College, with Joe Moorhead leaving for Mississippi State in 2017 after two sea- sons at PSU. At age 43, Kotelnicki is still climbing the ladder, having moved from Division III to the Mid-American Conference, to a struggling Power Five program, and now to a College Football Playoff hopeful. His age and résumé suggest that State College isn't his final stop, but there's no reason for Penn State or its fans to be fazed by that possibility. If he becomes a hot commodity, it'll be because he enjoyed the kind of success that the Nittany Lions sought when they brought him aboard. ■ After two successful seasons as Penn State's defensive coordinator, Manny Diaz left in December to become the head coach at Duke. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL Change Is The Only Constant In Modern College Football VARSITY VIEWS