Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1541276
D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 5 6 3 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M coaching search in more than 60 years, respond now that it was discovering how everyone else in college football lived? 'This Is Unbelievable' It responded by taking 58 days to find its man. Former Penn State football and wres- tling All-American David Joyner had taken over the athletics department on an interim basis and teamed up with trustee Ira Lubert to lead a six-person search committee that also included NCAA title-winning women's volleyball coach Russ Rose. The committee reportedly met with Bradley, quarterbacks coach Jay Pa- terno and former PSU assistant Brian Norwood, who had since moved on to Baylor. Munchak was in serious conten- tion — to the point where he was said to have reached out to potential assistant coaches to gauge their interest. But the former All-America offensive lineman and Pro Football Hall of Famer ended up staying with the Tennessee Titans. Meyer, too, was said to be interested in the job for a time. Program insiders will tell you that he was set to be Paterno's successor before removing himself from contention when the scandal hit. Penn State also reportedly approached Boise State coach Chris Petersen, only to be rebuffed. While the list of supposed contend- ers was full of boldface names, in the end Penn State went with Bill O'Brien. He was a longtime college and NFL as- sistant, but few Nittany Lion football fans would have recognized him before he emerged as the favorite late in the process. O'Brien, who was serving as the New England Patriots' offensive coordina- tor during the 2011 season, reportedly began ascending after former Philadel- phia Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski recommended to his friend Lubert that Penn State should look to the NFL for its next coach. O'Brien was appointed as Paterno's successor on Jan. 6, 2012. Prior to the an- nouncement, Penn State's head coaching vacancy was the only one in the Power Five conferences that remained unfilled. There was no transfer portal or early signing period at the time, and there was less urgency around the roster-con- struction portion of the job than there is in 2025. As far as O'Brien knew at the time, the team he inherited in January would, for the most part, be the team he led onto the field for the Nittany Lions' opener against Ohio in September. When O'Brien stepped up to the lec- tern for his introductory presser at the Nittany Lion Inn on Jan. 7, his first words captured a feeling that was no doubt shared by many in that ballroom and the wider Penn State community. "This is unbelievable," he said. After the requisite thank-yous — to his family, his new employers and his coaching mentors, with the latter group highlighted by Bill Belichick — O'Brien explained what drew him to a job that others had shunned. "What's not to sell about Penn State?" he said. "The people here, the faculty, the students, the passion that they have for football, the ability to get a meaningful degree, to graduate from Penn State and make something of your life. "One of the things we'll try to do here when they enter the door as freshman student-athletes is to teach them what it means to be a Penn State man. That's the reason why I wanted the job, and that's the reason why I'm thrilled to be stand- ing up here today." 'They Couldn't Have Picked A Better Man' The drama around O'Brien's arrival underscored how much the game had changed in the decades since Penn State's previous head coaching tran- sition. That hire turned out to be one of the most consequential decisions in university history, and yet it could hardly have been less dramatic. Paterno had been on Rip Engle's staff at Penn State since the two arrived to- gether from Brown in 1950. In 1964, Pa- terno was offered the head coaching job at Yale and had serious interest, being an Ivy Leaguer himself. But what the longtime assistant really wanted was to combine the academic rigor of the Ivies, which by that point were fading from the major-college football scene, with the championship potential of a big land-grant school. Penn State afforded him just such an opportunity, so before accepting Yale's offer, Paterno requested a meeting with PSU president Eric Walker to ask for an assurance that he would be named head coach after Engle's retirement. In his 1989 autobiography "Paterno By the Book," the coach recounted that fateful conversation: "Dr. Walker looked me straight in the eye, both sternly and warmly. 'If you're good enough, you'll get the job. That's the only thing that's going to count.'" On Feb. 18, 1966, Penn State an- nounced that Engle was stepping down. The following day, Paterno was named head coach. "They couldn't have picked a better man anywhere in the country," Engle told the assembled sportswriters. PSU will be hoping to do the same this year. The university's current head coaching search will be only its third since Paterno took charge, with the first of those efforts yielding O'Brien and the second producing Franklin two years later. Given their infrequency, it would be fair to say that PSU is out of practice, but that's better than the alternative. ■ "One of the things we'll try to do here when they enter the door as freshman student-athletes is to try to teach them what it means to be a Penn State man. That's the reason why I wanted the job, and that's the reason why I'm thrilled to be standing up here today." B I L L O ' B R I E N , A F T E R B E I N G I N T R O D U C E D A S P S U ' S H E A D C O A C H I N 2 0 1 2