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Penn State football: A dozen questions as the post-Paterno era begins

This year will be the most closely watched football season in the history of Penn State. The post-Paterno era comes with many questions. Here are 12.

5. New man in charge

  • By Ross Atkin Staff

Who is the team’s new head coach?

Bill O’Brien. To the general public, at least, he’s mostly an unknown. In signing on to lead Penn State in the post-Paterno era, he has assumed his first head coaching job.  Ironically, he may be best known as the assistant coach for the New England Patriots who got into a shouting match with quarterback Tom Brady on the team’s bench last season. Clearly, he showed a lot of backbone and intensity on that occasion, barking at the future Hall of Famer when Brady threw an interception on the goal line. Before his five years with the Patriots, O’Brien, a Boston native, spent 14 years at the collegiate level working as an assistant at Brown University (his alma mater as well as Paterno’s), Georgia Tech, Maryland, and Duke. Dave Joyner, Penn State’s acting athletic director, has said that O’Brien “will embrace tradition, demand excellence, and pursue success with honor in every phase of our program.”  O’Brien originally signed a five-year contract, which, due to a provision that kicked in when NCAA sanctions were announced, was automatically extended four more years.  So, with nine years he has plenty of time to dig out of any holes incurred by the penalties, but if it proves not to be a good marriage, that nine years could seem like an eternity.

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Mark Sappenfield
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