O'Brien Coaching Staff - Penn State Football

New Penn State head coach Bill O’Brien has wasted little time surrounding himself with quality assistant coaches. O’Brien has named six coaches to the coaching staff leaving offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach as the only remaining openings. It was previously reported several weeks ago that O’Brien would bring Patriots offensive assistant George Godsey with him to Penn State as a quarterbacks coach, but that deal appears to be on hold until at least after Super Bowl XLVI.

In addition, O’Brien has retained Larry Johnson and Ron Vanderlinden as the only two holdovers from the late Joe Paterno’s staff. By keeping Johnson and Vanderlinden, it is expected they will stabilize the recruiting process while O’Brien coaches through the rest of the NFL playoffs with the Patriots. Both are crucial to maintaining the success and defensive reputation of “Linebacker U.”

So who are these new assistants and what can be expected of them?

Mac McWhorter - Offensive line

The 2008 assistant coach of the year has spent the past nine seasons as the offensive line coach and assistant head coach at the University of Texas. McWhorter has consistently built terrific offensive lines at Texas during his time there and has seen many of his players go to the professional ranks. McWhorter and O’Brien were on the same Georgia Tech staff from 2000-2001 where O’Brien was the offensive coordinator and McWhorter coached the offensive line.

Ted Roof - Defensive Coordinator

Roof comes to Penn State from the University of Auburn where he served as defensive coordinator from 2009-2011. During that time, he helped lead the Tigers to the 2010 BCS National Championship. Roof was the head coach of Duke from 2004-2007 during which time O’Brien served as offensive coordinator from 2005-2006. Before he led Auburn’s defense, Roof served as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator for the 2008 season.

John Butler – Secondary

A Philadelphia native, Butler returns to his home state after one season coaching special teams at South Carolina to coach the secondary under O’Brien. Butler is the only member of the staff who has not worked previously with O’Brien. He did however coach with Roof in Minnesota so he has some familiarity with how the defense can be expected to run next season.

Stan Hixon – Wide Receivers

Hixon comes to Penn State from the professional ranks, as he was most recently the wide receivers coach for the Buffalo Bills from 2010-2011. He coached the wide receivers for the Washington Redskins from 2004-2009. Hixon coached on LSU’s 2003 national championship team and coached at Georgia Tech with O’Brien.

Charles London - Running Backs

London worked previously with O’Brien at Duke from 2005-2006 where he also coached running backs. He comes to Penn State to coach the running backs after serving as an offensive quality control coach last season for the Tennessee Titans. Before working at Tennessee he was an offensive assistant and assistant wide receivers coach for the Chicago Bears from 2007-2009.

John Strollo-Tight Ends

Like London, Strollo worked with O’Brien at Duke, where he coached the tight ends and offensive line from 2005-2007. His most recent stop was at Ball State where he coached the offensive line last season.

Overall, it’s a diverse and very well-rounded group of coaches with three of them, O’Brien, London and Hixon, having professional coaching experience as well as collegiate experience. It’s no surprise that O’Brien has reached back to former colleagues to come in and start a new tradition of Penn State football. If he wants to build this foundation right, it makes sense to do it with coaches he can trust. McWhorter and Roof should be beneficial to getting started recruiting the south, an area that Penn State has not traditionally recruited very hard, but produces extremely talented football players. 

Hixon, McWhorter and Roof have been a part of national championship teams in the past ten years so they know what it takes to build a winning program. Each of these coaches has had plenty of success in their careers, now Penn State fans will wait and see if they can come together as a staff and help lead Penn State back into national title contenders.