Bill O'Brien…..a Step Up and a Great Fit
Congratulations Penn State for two reasons:
One, for the hiring of Bill O' Brien and two, for not handcuffing themselves to tradition and getting away from any and everything that put Penn State in the situation they are in now.
Even though there are still people who would like to stick to "what Penn State stands for" and "what Penn State is about", the committee did a magnificent job is thinking outside the box and seeing what the Big Ten and college football is becoming.
Michigan (11-2) had an exciting run with Denard Robinson, Wisconsin (11-3) is putting up major points and will have Montee Ball returning for his senior season. Urban Meyer was just hired as Ohio State's head coach and Michigan State again had a strong season with a 7-1 conference record. So PSU……great move, although they weren’t bad this year sporting a 6-2 in conference and a 9-4 overall record.
What this all boils down to is one word….recruiting. Western Pennsylvania is loaded with great high schools with amazing talent and recruits. Although Bill O’Brien came to the New England Patriots organization after their Super Bowl run, he is still a credible recruiting selling point. He was a wide receiver and quarterbacks coach for most of his tenure at New England and was Bill Belichick's right hand man as offensive coordinator. What high school five star recruit would turn that down?
Also, if you take into consideration how the Patriots coaching staff has made superstars out of players that nobody has heard of before, on the highest level at that, most would say that’s enough to draw kids in to play for you.
It will be interesting to see this develop as Penn State has the resources available to O'Brien for him to be successful that he has not had on the college level before. He has been a coach / administrator at Brown, Georgia Tech, Maryland and Duke. Three of those four schools are primarily basketball schools, not that they don’t care about football, but most of their success has been on the basketball end. Penn State has the money, the football tradition, and the resources, not to mention the desire to be on top of the Big Ten.
O'Brien will be continuing his job with the Patriots throughout the NFL playoffs. If the New England Patriots go to the Super Bowl, O’Brien’s resume is enhanced further, which could improve recruiting even more.
