Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1524108
A U G U S T 2 0 2 4 5 9 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / T H E D E F E N S E / / / / / / / Dani Dennis-Sutton. At linebacker, redshirt junior Kobe King and sopho- more Tony Rojas will take the lead. And in the secondary, senior Jaylen Reed, junior Kevin Winston Jr. and redshirt junior Zakee Wheatley are expected to form an outstanding safety corps. Allen has eagerly embraced the chal- lenge of building an outfit capable of lifting Penn State to its first College Football Playoff berth. However, that wasn't the main reason why he im- mediately returned to coaching after being dismissed by Indiana last No- vember. Allen had been bought out of his contract for an agreed-upon sum of $15.5 million. Under no financial or personal pressure to take a new job, he weighed his options and considered the input of his wife and friends. "My wife said, 'Are you sure? Let's just do something a lot less stressful,'" Allen recalled. "My closest friends would have said, 'Hey, take the year [off ].' They knew how draining what I just came out of was. Just to do that at that place, for that long, was really hard, more emotionally than anything. That was their advice. It was one of the options that I had." Allen said he spent two or three days deep in thought before deciding that he enjoyed coaching too much to step away. "I was excited about being the DC," he explained. "But, I will say, I felt like I could be picky. I knew places I wasn't going to go. I wasn't going to do it un- less I set three parameters, and as long as those were met, then I just felt like I had more in me." The first prerequisite, he said, was "an administration that was aligned to be successful. Number two, [it had to be] a place that loved football, from top to bottom. And number three, I wanted to be at a place where we had an opportunity to win a national championship. Those are the three things." At Indiana, Allen had ascended to the head job following one season as defensive coordinator on Kevin Wil- son's staff. Over the next four years, he steadily lifted the program from its spot as a perennial Big Ten doormat. Back-to-back 5-7 seasons set the stage for an 8-5 finish in 2019, the team's first winning campaign since going 7-6 in 2007. Allen followed it with a 6-2 record and a second-place finish in the Big Ten East Division in 2020, beginning with a stunning 36-35 over- time win against eighth-ranked Penn State. While the Hoosiers were ascending, two radical changes were beginning to reshape college athletics. Name, image and likeness legislation dramatically altered recruiting, and the introduc- tion of the NCAA transfer portal simi- larly upended the notion of stability. At basketball-obsessed Indiana, Al- len and the football program soon felt the ramifications of those changes. In 2021, quarterback Michael Penix Jr. missed the season's first seven games with an injury, and the Hoosiers went 2-10. Then Penix left for Washington, putting Indiana in a bind from which it couldn't escape. "Look at the trajectory of our pro- gram in Indiana. When NIL came, ev- erything changed," Allen said. "It just crushed us." Having lost the support of athletics director Scott Dolson, Allen was fired one day after Indiana finished its 2023 campaign with a 3-9 record. Three weeks later, Penn State announced his hiring as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. In making that transition, Allen recognized an opportunity with the Nittany Lions that hadn't existed pre- viously in his career. When he inter- viewed for the job, he first met with athletics director Patrick Kraft, who laid out a vision for Penn State foot- ball. He then saw in James Franklin a coach who shared his commitment to a developmental program built on per- sonnel stability and growth. Finally, he saw in the broader Penn State commu- nity a level of support for football that creates possibilities on the field. PSU was offering Allen the oppor- tunity to fulfill his stated goal of being a defensive coordinator in the Big Ten while holding onto his core coaching values as part of a program poised to win at the highest levels and with the leadership in place to see it through. "Everything rises and falls off lead- ership. It matters. Those individuals in those positions, they drive the di- rection of your programs," Allen said. "It's really obvious when there's a pas- sion for something. There's a passion for football here at Penn State, and it makes a difference. There's a passion for football from our leadership here at Penn State, and it makes a difference. There's a distinct difference when your people in charge love football, and they want to give you the resources to be your best. "I don't miss dealing with any of that stuff [that head coaches need to do]. All I can do is just focus on build- ing the best defense, building relation- ships, and doing a great job of coach- ing these guys." ■ F A S T F A C T S : D E F E N S E Coordinator: Tom Allen (first season) Starters returning: DE Abdul Carter*, DT Zane Durant, DT Dvon J-Thomas, MLB Kobe King, S Jaylen Reed, S Kevin Winston Jr. Other returnees with starting experience: DT Hakeem Beamon, DE Dani Dennis-Sutton, MLB Tyler Elsdon, CB Cam Miller Starters lost: DE Chop Robinson, DE Adisa Isaac, OLB Curtis Jacobs, CB Kalen King, CB Johnny Dixon * Previous starts were at linebacker "It's really obvious when there's a passion for something. There's a passion for football here at Penn State, and it makes a difference." A L L E N