Penn State fans are always gushing over their Nittany Lions, but according to Bill O’Brien so were plenty of other colleges during the open transfer period.
“I would say as a staff, we did as good a job as anybody’s ever done at keeping a team together,” O’Brien told The Football Letter blog, run by the Penn State alumni association. “We had kids that were being recruited by 50 schools — I know Donovan Smith had 50 scholarship offers.
“So we as a staff — not me; I’m talking about we, all of us, the staff, the strength coaches, everybody—did a fantastic job of communicating with the players, talking with them about what was great about Penn State, and what wasn’t so good at the time—being honest and up-front with them. I would say that was the best thing we did last year.”
For O’Brien and his assistants, the first of a handful of NCAA sanctions ended Monday with the Nittany Lions kicking off summer training camp. Up until that point any player on the roster was able to transfer to any school in the nation at any time without having to sit out a year per usual NCAA rules.
Ultimately Penn State saw a few players take advantage of the transfer opportunity to pursue more playing time but for the most part the Nittany Lions’ roster maintained intact over the extended period of open season on Penn State’s roster.
The full interview with Bill O’Brien can be read by clicking HERE.
