Update 6:46 p.m.: Acting athletic director Dave Joyner has denied an earlier report that a deal has been reached with Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien for him to become the permanent football coach at Penn State.
‘There is no deal with anybody,’ Joyner told reporters Sunday night in Dallas at a Penn State pep rally.
Earlier: O’Brien, the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the New England Patriots, has emerged as the leading candidate for Penn State’s coaching vacancy, according to multiple reports.
ESPN’s NFL insider Adam Schefter reported Sunday morning O’Brien is the leading candidate to permanently replace Joe Paterno. USA Today’s Jon Saraceno later tweeted contract details need only be finalized before the hire is official.
O’Brien is in the final year of his contract with the Pats.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported on Saturday that interim head coach Tom Bradley was slated to have a second interview with the Penn State search committee. But after a press conference on Sunday at the Cotton Bowl, Bradley refuted that report, saying the committee ‘hasn’t told me anything.’
Late Friday night, StateCollege.com reported that Green Bay Packers quarterbacks coach Tom Clements would be interviewed for a second time later this week.
A fourth candidate, Titans coach Mike Munchak, who issued a strong denial about his interest in the job last week, is still wavering on that decision, StateCollege.com reported in that same Friday night story.
Penn State’s search started Nov. 28 — 20 days after Paterno was fired — when acting athletic director David Joyner announced a six-person committee tasked to finding the university’s 16th head football coach.
It’s been 35 days since the committee was announced, and this is the first instance when O’Brien’s name was reported as a strong candidate.
O’Brien was promoted to offensive coordinator under coach Bill Belichick in 2011 after spending the previous two seasons primarily working with Tom Brady as the franchise’s quarterbacks coach. He also spent time in New England as wide receivers coach and as an offensive assistant.
Before joining the pro ranks, O’Brien, 42, spent much of his career in the Atlantic Coast Conference, coaching running backs at Maryland and quarterbacks at Georgia Tech and Duke, two schools where he also served as offensive coordinator. His first coaching job came at Brown in the early-to-mid ’90s, when he coached tight ends and inside linebackers.
O’Brien learned offense under former Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen when the two were at Georgia Tech. He replaced Friedgen as offensive coordinator in 2001 when he left for College Park, and in his first season, quarterback George Godsey set school season records with 3,085 yards passing and 249 completions, while completing 64.8 percent of his passes.
When O’Brien arrived at Duke in 2005, the Blue Devils were coming off a season in which they finished last in total offense among Football Bowl Subdivision teams. In his second and last season at Duke, O’Brien coached freshman quarterback Thaddeus Lewis, who at the time put together the fourth-best passing yardage total in ACC history among freshman quarterbacks, not bad for a guy whose team finished 0-12. Lewis finished his career with 10,065 yards. To put that in perspective, Zack Mills is Penn State’s all-time leading passer with 7,212 yards.
Last month, Joyner outlined three criteria he was looking for in the Nittany Lions next coach — high ethics, stresses academics and winning in an environment as big as Penn State.
O’Brien left Duke for New England, oft-regarded as the blueprint for a successful NFL franchise, where he inherited Brady. But O’Brien has a proven offensive background, and his college coaching background has been at schools with some of the strictest academic requirements in the nation.
