James Franklin shares excitement to keep Andy Kotelnicki on Penn State staff

While the coaching carousel hasn’t necessarily ended for this cycle, it has cooled down. With that, Penn State Nittany Lions offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki will be remaining in Happy Valley, a decision that has head coach James Franklin excited about the future.

Ahead of Penn State’s first-round College Football Playoff game, Franklin shared why he’s so excited to keep Kotelnicki on staff and what he believes that means for the program.

“As you guys have heard me say, consistency on our staff is really important but hard to do in the current college football landscape,” Franklin said. “It’s also a compliment and a curse. We keep losing staff to go be head coaches, or they leave here and then go one other stop and then become a head coach, like Dowell [Loggains] just became the head coach at App State, and really happy for him and his family.”

Last season, Penn State turned over its special teams coordinator, offensive coordinator, and defensive coordinator. Finding a sense of stability on the coaching staff going into next season is a massive first step for the Nittany Lions.

“So, obviously, being able to retain staff and specifically the coordinator positions is really important. I think about how hard we worked this offseason to make sure that having three new coordinators wasn’t going to create more challenges and be a setback for us, and I think we’ve done a good job of that,” Franklin said. “But I think there’s also an excitement about what we can do moving forward, thinking about what we had to do this offseason. Now we have a foundation to build on. I think there’s a lot of excitement about that.”

This offseason, Kotelnicki did seem to have opportunities. However, amid speculation, he announced he’d be returning to Penn State.

“I also think that Andy, like Brent Pry and some others, realized that we’re in a great position. We’re in a top-10, and could make the argument, top-five program in college football, with what we’ve been able to do here, really over my 11 years, but more recently. And there’s power that comes with that. At the end of the day, are you happy? Are you doing it at a good place with good people and can you win? I think Andy and his family feel like we’re in a really good position and he can wait and take the right job. There’s power in that,” Franklin said. “Between myself, Pat Kraft, and the administration, we want to do everything we possibly can to keep the staff in place and continue to build and grow.”

Beyond going into next season, retaining Kotelnicki means that Franklin doesn’t need to address one of his key staff roles ahead of the College Football Playoff and while dealing with the Transfer Portal.

“So that decision was big for a lot of reasons,” Franklin said. “It’s big because you don’t want to be dealing with this during a playoff run. You don’t want to be dealing with this when you’ve got players deciding what their futures are. Obviously, these men and women impact that too. So for a lot of reasons, it’s been good. There were a ton of conversations that went on with that, too.”

Penn State will be ready to go for their next game against the SMU Mustangs on December 21st at 12:00 p.m. EST in the Playoff.