Penn State’s Bill O’Brien Quickly Bringing Together Coaching Staff

The only two coaches to keep their spots by B.O’.B.: defensive line coach Larry Johnson and linebackers coach Ron Vanderlinden. Just in case anybody’s wondering, no, former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky isn’t included in any of this. He hadn’t coach in many a year.

Related: Jerry Sandusky fallout, replacing Joe Paterno, and Penn State’s movement to support sexual abuse survivors. For more on the Nittany Lions, visit Penn State blog Black Shoe Diaries. More college football news.

The New York Times tracks Penn State’s board of trustees from the Saturday afternoon when the Jerry Sandusky grand jury report broke to vice chairman John Surma’s nationally televised announcement that Joe Paterno had been fired.

↵↵SPOILER ALERT: PSU president Graham Spanier does not come across well!

Via Sports Radio Interviews, here’s O’Brien with Atlanta’s 790 the Zone:

How exciting it is to be Penn State’s head coach and New England’s offensive coordinator:

Before getting angry about this, understand it’s completely normal: Joe Paterno is still employed by Penn State, despite the decision to relieve him of his duties during the 2011 football season. The Penn State Board of Trustees made the unanimous decision to strip away his title of head football coach, but is continuing to work on a retirement package in accordance with his status as a tenured faculty member.

In explaining its decision to remove Paterno, Board of Trustees chairman Steve Garban and vice chair John Surma released a statement on Thursday. While the board felt Paterno had to be removed from his post immediately, they still intend to honor the terms of his contract.

Paterno worked the last 12 seasons as the quarterbacks coach for the Nittany Lions. There was no word on whether or not he would coach elsewhere.

For more on the Nittany Lions, head to Penn State blog Black Shoe Diaries.

Penn State is building its first post-Joe Paterno coaching staff under new head coach Bill O’Brien, and will be turning to a defensive coordinator with a national championship ring on his hand in that effort. The Big Ten Network’s Tom Dienhart reports that Penn State will hire Ted Roof, who served as Auburn’s defensive coordinator in 2011.

Roof was already set to depart Auburn for Central Florida, where he would have served as defensive coordinator under George O’Leary, but Penn State obviously provides a slightly higher profile than UCF can. Furthermore, though Roof’s tenure as Central Florida’s defensive coordinator has spanned about a month and covered no actual football games, he’s had short stints in his coaching career in the past.

Not necessarily as the DC, mind you, though Roof’s expertise is linebackery, and PSU’s retained its linebackers coach.

For now, let’s call it a rumor that’s a little too strange to have zero truth to it. After all, O’Brien spoke well of Roof at his introductory press conference, so perhaps there’s been a courtesy interview of some sort. (Let’s also remember he’s had a very, very quick stint in his past.)

Keeping three Nittany Lions coaches should help somewhat soothe concerns that the new regime wouldn’t be Penn State enough. While most fans would’ve preferred to see defensive coordinator Tom Bradley stick around, there are at least a few critical links remaining on Penn State’s best side of the ball.

The first new guy: Tennessee Titans quality control assistant Charles London, who’ll take over as running backs coach. Black Shoe Diaries wouldn’t mind if he could expand PSU’s recruiting turf a little bit:

Bill O’Brien was introduced as Penn State’s head coach at a press conference on Saturday morning, ending a search for Joe Paterno’s replacement that lasted more than a month after the legendary Nittany Lions head man was fired in November.

“I’m going to surround myself with really good people,” O’Brien said, explaining that he expects to have a staff in place in the next two or three days, while also announcing that defensive line coach Larry Johnson, Sr. would return to Penn State’s staff. O’Brien will continue with all of his duties as the New England Patriots’ offensive coordinator — “There’s no way I can talk about commitment and leave the Patriots at the start of a playoff run” — but should also be juggling some duties as the head man in State College at the same time.

O’Brien will be asked by the lack of support his hire has already stirred up among former players, who felt excluded from the coaching search process. He’ll be asked about what could be a vanishing recruiting class, what he’ll do if he has to coach with the Patriots through February, his plans to seal ties between the school and community, his discipline standards, and on and on. Again, unless these people show up.

TV time and online streaming viewing information:

O’Brien will be the 15th head coach in school history and replaces Joe Paterno, who was fired as part of the fallout over a sexual abuse scandal centered around former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

O’Brien has 14 years of college coaching experience, working at Georgia Tech from 1995-2002, serving as the school’s offensive coordinator the final two seasons before coaching at Maryland (2003-04) and Duke (2005-06). O’Brien has been with the Patriots since 2007, coaching the quarterbacks from 2009 and adding offensive coordinator duties prior to the 2011 season.

Contrary to an ESPN report that stated Bradley was no longer employed by the school, Bradley informed the Mirror that, for now, he remains on the team’s coaching staff.

Bradley has been on the Penn State coaching staff for 33 years and has been the team’s defensive coordinator since the 2000 season. Bradley replaced fired head coach Joe Paterno in November and guided the Panthers to a 1-3 record.

Recruits like the idea of playing for Tom Brady’s coordinator, for one thing.

For the definitive take on Penn State sports, I turn to Black Shoe Diaries, and not just because they’re on our network. It’s a hilarious, well-written, well-staffed site, one not at all prone to hitting the ceiling even in the most trying times. And these are trying times!

Kraft to the Boston Herald:

O’Brien was with New England since 2007, rising through the ranks and becoming offensive coordinator in 2011. Whatever may come of his college head coaching career, I think we can all comfortably assume he’s indeed a person of integrity. That had to have been Penn State’s No. 1 qualification for the job.

It means separating what Penn State football means to Penn State from what Penn State itself means to the general public.

Maybe O’Brien’s lifelong dream was to coach a college program. Maybe he’ll prove to be really good at it. Lots of unheralded coaches have found success before. You’d have to assume he has just about the cleanest background check in the country, for one thing. Placing his livelihood on the line in the country’s most toxic environment is brave, to say the least, though Penn State vets are already wondering whether he really knows what he’s walking into.

O’Brien actually has a very extensive college coaching resume, just not as a head coach. He began his college coaching career in 1993 as the tight ends coach at his alma mater Brown University, where he played defensive end. He moved from tight ends coach to coach inside linebackers in 1994. After the 1994 season with Brown, O’Brien took an offensive graduate assistant position at Georgia Tech. O’Brien stayed on the Georgia Tech coaching staff for eight years.

More: Bill O’Brien hired by Penn State on SI.com

But with Penn State reportedly hiring NFL assistant Bill O’Brien as its head coach, putting a man with no impressive college experience or head coaching experience of any kind in charge of one of the nation’s largest programs, it was just a bit too much for Arrington, who took to Twitter before hitting the air waves for his day job:

There’s the sense that the school has gone out of its way to make a show of de-emphasizing football in the wake of the Sandusky scandal.

But what of the other fanbase impacted by this move? Nearly as quickly as the report surfaced, questions from Patriots fans and reporters followed, wondering if O’Brien would stay with the team throughout the NFL Playoffs, as OC Charlie Weis did when Notre Dame hired him, or if he’d depart immediately to get a start on recruiting. Well, now we have an answer, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter:

And while that’s good news for Tom Brady and company -- the Patriots are the No. 1 seed in the AFC -- it’s probably not what Penn State fans wanted to hear.

First, CBS’ Mike Freeman confirmed that O’Brien had indeed “agreed to become the coach of Penn State,” citing the always popular “team source.” It would be the first head coaching position for O’Brien at any level.

Then, Ian Rapoport, a Patriots reporter for the Boston Herald -- so, a guy who spends every day with the team -- took to Twitter to share the news, narrowly getting beat on the scoop by Mortensen:

Earlier on Thursday, it was confirmed that O’Brien was not in attendance at Patriots’ practice, reportedly because he was too busy interviewing for the Penn State opening.

O’Brien, 42, whose coaching career began as the tight ends coach at Brown University in 1993, has been with New England since 2007, serving as an offensive assistant, wide receivers coach, quarterbacks coach, and, officially beginning in 2011, the team’s offensive coordinator (he was essentially the OC in 2009-10, when the team did not have anyone with the offensive coordinator title).

Still, Belichick noting that O’Brien wasn’t at New England practice is the answer we need. The Patriots have a bye week, but offensive coordinators don’t just skip practices during the NFL playoffs for no good reason.

O’Brien hasn’t worked a college job since 2006, when he concluded a run of mostly position coaching jobs at various middlin’ ACC schools. He has no head coaching experience, and only five years of coordinator experience.

Related: Jerry Sandusky fallout, replacing Joe Paterno, and Penn State’s movement to support sexual abuse survivors. For more on the Nittany Lions, visit Penn State blog Black Shoe Diaries. More college football news.

While Greg Schiano’s name just doesn’t seem to go away in connection with Penn State’s coaching job, the Rutgers coach reportedly is still not interested. Schiano was once a Penn State assistant.

The desire to link Schiano to Penn State does make sense. In addition to being a former assistant, having spent six years there mostly as a defensive backs coach, some reports surfaced that a Penn State private jet had been visiting Schiano’s neighborhood around Christmas. It would also make sense that Penn State would be looking to make a bit of a splash with the man they choose to replace the winningest coach in NCAA history, something Schiano’s hiring would accomplish.

StateCollege.com’s Mike Poorman and our own Ben Jones report Schiano’s name has stayed alive in the agent community in connection to Penn State, even though the public had moved on. The duo also report four recent visits by a PSU private jet to Schiano’s neck of the woods since Dec. 26.

It’s worth noting, as the report does, that a search committee member lives within range of those airports, so this isn’t a dead giveaway that Schiano is soon to be hired. However, there’s a good bit to go on if you’d like to think Penn State’s at least looking beyond just the anonymous NFL assistant coach market for the man to replace the winningest coach in Division I football history.

Maybe the plan is to attempt to convince the NCAA that Penn State is actually a NFL team?