Penn State adds former Duke defensive coordinator Robb Smith in analyst role
Penn State has added another experienced college football coach to its support staff ahead of the 2023 season. The Lions have hired former Duke defensive coordinator Robb Smith as a defensive analyst and analytics coordinator. He joins head coach James Franklin’s program after presiding over the Blue Devils’ defense during the 2022 season.
Smith is no stranger to the Big Ten or Pennsylvania. A Pittsburgh, Pa., native, he played at Allegheny College in the mid-90s before starting his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Iowa. After three seasons in Iowa City, he’d spend the next seven years at Maine, where he rose to the position of assistant head coach and defensive coordinator. From there, the former safety would go to Rutgers. He spent three seasons in Piscataway as the program’s special teams coordinator before becoming its defensive coordinator in 2012. He then spent one year on Greg Schiano’s Tampa Bay Buccanneers staff as its outside linebackers coach. In 2014, Smith became Arkansas’s defensive coordinator, a role he’d hold until leaving to lead Minnesota’s defense from 2017-2018.
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This will not be Smith’s first time on a support staff. He filled an analyst role at Texas A&M in 2019. He then returned to the Scarlet Knights to again work under Schiano as his defensive coordinator in 2020 and 2021. Duke head coach Mike Elko brought him on board to lead his defense in 2022, but the partnership lasted only a single season.
“Robb and I have talked about him wanting to get back home closer to his family in Minnesota,” Elko said in a statement, according to the Duke Chronicle. “In the end, this was just the right time for him. We appreciate Robb’s commitment to our program over the past season and wish him the best moving forward.”
Instead of doing that, however, he moved closer to his roots and is now at Penn State.
Penn State continues offseason staffing push
Smith is hardly the first new member of the Penn State support staff. Letterman Calvin Lowry was hired as an offensive analyst earlier this year. Former NFL coach and FCS defensive coordinator Ola Adams also joined the staff as a defensive analyst. David Parker moved into an analyst seat after formerly being a graduate assistant for the Nittany Lions. And, former Boise State kicker Eric Sachse is now in State College as a special teams analyst.
Additions have been made in the recruiting department, too. Legendary WPIAL high school football coach Bob Palko is the new director of high school relations at Penn State. And, Khalil Ahmad and D.J. Bryant came from Syracuse and Colorado, respectively, to be recruiting coordinators for personnel and recruitment, while Brett Arnold was brought in as an assistant recruiting coordinator from Delaware.
Finally, on-field Penn State staff changes include Marques Hagans taking over for Taylor Stubblefield to lead the receivers. Deion Barnes took John Scott Jr.’s defensive line coach role after he left for the NFL. And, Torrence Brown and Kevin Ceh were added as graduate assistants, while Danny O’Brien transitioned into that title after spending last season as an analyst for the Lions.
