Penn St. AD: No Top Coaching Candidate at LinesMaker

Penn St. AD: No Top Coaching Candidate

DALLAS – Penn State insists it doesn’t have a lead­ing can­di­date in its nearly two-month long search for a foot­ball coach.

USA Today and ESPN reported Sun­day that New Eng­land Patri­ots offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Bill O’Brien is the top con­tender for the Nit­tany Lions job.

At a Penn State pep rally Sun­day out­side the Cot­ton Bowl, Act­ing Ath­letic Direc­tor David Joyner cut off a reporter’s ques­tion about the reports and said, “No, don’t believe any­thing you read in the news­pa­pers. I was taught that long time ago.”

He answered “No,” when asked if any­one could be clas­si­fied as a lead­ing candidate.

The pro­gram has been with­out a per­ma­nent head coach since Nov. 9, when uni­ver­sity trustees fired Hall of Famer Joe Paterno in the after­math of child sex abuse charges against for­mer assis­tant coach Jerry San­dusky. He is await­ing trial and pleaded not guilty after waiv­ing a pre­lim­i­nary court hear­ing last month.

Long­time defen­sive coor­di­na­tor Tom Bradley, who has been lead­ing the team on an interim basis, has inter­viewed for the job. Defen­sive line coach Larry John­son is also among the can­di­dates who have interviewed.

Oth­er­wise, the search has been the sub­ject of a seem­ingly end­less stream of rumors and spec­u­la­tion. Joyner last week said he hoped to have a replace­ment in time to allow for roughly three weeks to recruit before high school seniors can announce their col­lege choices Feb. 1.

“We haven’t hired any­body yet, the search com­mit­tee is still work­ing on it,” Pres­i­dent Rod­ney Erick­son said at the pep rally. “We’re tak­ing our time in a very delib­er­a­tive kind of fashion.”

Patri­ots coach Bill Belichek declined com­ment about the reports on O’Brien fol­low­ing New England’s 49–21 vic­tory Sun­day over Buf­falo in Foxborough.

Quar­ter­back Tom Brady called O’Brien a great coach and friend. “I don’t what’s going to hap­pen,” Brady said. “I hope he’s here for a long time and I told him that, too.”

The out­go­ing Bradley, an assis­tant for more than three decades, appears to have the back­ing of some for­mer play­ers, alumni and donors. A smil­ing Bradley hugged Joyner as he left the rally while fans chanted his name. One backer held up a hand­writ­ten sign that read “Tom Bradley is our coach. We R Loyal!!”

Robert Har­ri­son, the pres­i­dent of a pri­vate invest­ment man­age­ment who said he has donated more than $ 250,000 to Penn State, has been a vocal pro­po­nent for Bradley. Alumni have been frac­tured by the charges against San­dusky and its wide-ranging impact on the uni­ver­sity, he said.

“Step (hash) 1 to bring us back together is to hire Tom Bradley as the head coach of Penn State foot­ball team,” Har­ri­son wrote in an email Sun­day to Joyner and Erickson.

BetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more col­lege foot­ball news see: Penn St. AD: No top coach­ing can­di­date .

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