Penn State moves analyst Danny O'Brien into graduate assistant role
Penn State is making an internal change to fill the graduate assistant position vacated by David Parker, who moved into an analyst role with the Lions earlier this offseason. Head coach James Franklin has moved multi-year analyst Danny O’Brien into a graduate assistant position.
O’Brien came to Penn State ahead of the 2021 season as a member of Franklin’s off-field support staff. Before that, he spent a year as the running backs coach for the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League. He played for Franklin at Maryland and later transferred to Wisconsin. He joined the Badgers after considering the Nittany Lions, who were pitching him on being a part of Bill O’Brien’s PSU program at the time.
“He’s so great with building lifelong relationships with people in general. It’s one of many things that I’m so impressed with him about,” Danny O’Brien said of Franklin in a 2021 interview with Statecollege.com. “Me and him, we’ve stayed in touch [even when I was up in Canada] and visiting him and popping in for practices. So we’ve kept in touch my entire time in Canada, pretty consistently. So it’s awesome to be able to be reunited in this way.”
“I always knew that I wanted to coach and I was fortunate enough to play after high school and then fortunate enough to play in Canada for a number of years. But I knew when I was 12 or 13, that I wanted to be a college football coach at a high level, if possible. So it’s, it’s been a long time coming for me. I’m super excited and I’m extremely fortunate to start out at a place like Penn State, something that I don’t take for granted. Every time I walked in the building. Yeah, it’s been a long time coming for me and I’m just really excited.”
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Tracking Penn State graduate assistant movement this offseason
As a GA, O’Brien will work closely with offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich and the Penn State quarterbacks. Moving from an analyst role to a grad assistant means he can work on the field with the players during practices and games. He is the third new person in a GA position on Franklin’s staff this year.
Lions letterman Torrence Brown replaced now first-year PSU defensive line coach Deion Barnes. And, Kevin Ceh took over for Dwayne Scott, who left the Lions to take a position at Pitt. Ceh will focus on the offensive line. Bryce Jones, then, is back for another year of working in the secondary and is the lone returning GA.
Penn State opens the 2023 opposite West Virginia inside Beaver Stadium. The Sept. 2 contest starts at 7:30 p.m. on NBC.
