O’Brien’s PSU Caravan Set to Begin in Philadelphia at LinesMaker

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (CFB/Newsfeed) — Com­ing soon to a city near you: Penn State coach Bill O’Brien!

The Nit­tany Lions’ new leader is embark­ing on a nine-day, 18-stop bus tour spread out over the next three weeks. It’s an exten­sive meet-and-greet road trip through seven states with an itin­er­ary that might make a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date blush.

First stop: Philadel­phia on Monday.

“I’m really look­ing for­ward to meet­ing every­body out on the road – the alumni, the fans – and really talk­ing to peo­ple about my vision of the foot­ball pro­gram,” O’Brien said.

It’s not unusual in one respect for a rookie head coach of such a high-profile team to be so pro-active with out­reach. With an alumni base of more than a half-million strong across the coun­try, Penn State draws a pas­sion­ate foot­ball following.

But O’Brien took on more than just the typ­i­cal big-school coach­ing job – and that was even before the child sex­ual abuse scan­dal that erupted fol­low­ing the arrest of Jerry San­dusky. A retired defen­sive coor­di­na­tor, San­dusky has pro­claimed his inno­cence while await­ing trial sched­uled to start in June.

Sandusky’s for­mer boss was the late Joe Paterno, who was ousted in Novem­ber in the after­math of the scan­dal by uni­ver­sity trustees. Divi­sion I’s win­ningest coach with 409 vic­to­ries paced the side­line in his jet-black Nikes for 46 sea­sons and became one of the most rec­og­niz­able fig­ures in Penn­syl­va­nia, if not col­lege sports.

Paterno died in Jan­u­ary at age 85. He used to be a reg­u­lar on the car­a­van cir­cuit, too, but scaled back in recent years in part because of health issues.

“Joe was a liv­ing leg­end, and the head foot­ball coach for nearly 50 years. I’m not sure how many car­a­vans he had to do,” O’Brien said recently. “I think I have to reach out to make sure peo­ple get to know me.”

With such a busy pub­lic sched­ule over the past few months since tak­ing the job, O’Brien almost seems to be every­where on cam­pus. Awards lun­cheon ban­quets. Announc­ing the win­ner of a “Best Chicken Wing” con­test. Meet­ing stu­dents at the stu­dent union.

O’Brien has turned into a sym­bol for a school and cam­pus com­mu­nity try­ing to move for­ward from crisis.

“Coach O’Brien has done every­thing well so far,” Penn State senior Lea Olecki said last week while vis­it­ing the statue of Paterno out­side Beaver Sta­dium. “He’s not try­ing to replace Joe. He’s doing his own thing.”

The next phase of the ambi­tious out­reach effort appears to be blan­ket­ing the rest of Penn­syl­va­nia and sur­round­ing states dur­ing this bus tour. Other coaches are join­ing O’Brien for stretches, but only the new foot­ball coach will be at every stop.

Scan­dal aside, there was a part of the Penn State fan base that had sought a coach­ing change and a more wide-open offense. Some of those fans were wor­ried that the pro­gram under Paterno was los­ing out on more top recruits. Paterno’s teams won two national titles in the 1980s, but the crowd also fret­ted about los­ing ground to rival Ohio State.

The for­mer offen­sive coor­di­na­tor for the potent New Eng­land Patri­ots, O’Brien appears to have appeased those con­cerns – at least through the spring. He’s installing a new offense at Penn State, and the Nit­tany Lions are off to a good start on the recruit­ing trail.

“How can I come into this job and close ranks with­out try­ing to get to know peo­ple, and get peo­ple to get to know me and how I see the foot­ball pro­gram,” O’Brien said. “Whether they agree with it or not, we’re going to com­mu­ni­cate about it, and that was some­thing I felt was nec­es­sary to do.”

Other issues may also be at play.

Whether or not by design, many stops on the trip are also fer­tile ter­ri­tory for Penn State recruit­ing. The car­a­van on Tues­day pulls into Bal­ti­more and Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and Rich­mond, Va., on Wednes­day a region where the Nit­tany Lions have long drawn tal­ent. O’Brien on May 10, goes to Hart­ford, Conn. a state from which Penn State recruited top tail­back Silas Redd and promis­ing line­backer Khairi Fortt.

And O’Brien crosses into east­ern Ohio on May 15 with vis­its to Youngstown – the home­town of for­mer star quar­ter­back Daryll Clark – and Cleveland.

The trip also comes at a time when sea­son tick­ets are also being sold for the 107,000-plus seat Beaver Sta­dium. It’s been a year since the pro­gram switched to a new season-ticket pric­ing struc­ture that forced some fans to donate more to the booster club to keep their seats.

Last sea­son, there appeared to be more vis­it­ing fans – or at least fans not wear­ing blue and white – inter­spersed among the crowds at sev­eral games through­out the sta­dium. Typ­i­cally, vis­it­ing fans were con­cen­trated in the cor­ner of the sta­dium reserved for the away team.

Act­ing Ath­letic Direc­tor David Joyner last week said ticket sales were “a lit­tle behind” from last year, though it was still early in the process. Booster club con­tri­bu­tions were going well, he said.

“Obvi­ously with ticket sales … it remains to be seen,” Joyner said. “There’s plenty of time to see what happens.”