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Penn State shifts graduate assistant Torrence Brown into analyst role

Greg Pickelby:Greg Pickel•03/14/25•

GregPickel

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Penn State letterman Torrence Brown.

Penn State football letterman Torrence Brown will remain on the Nittany Lions staff in 2025. After two years as a graduate assistant under head coach James Franklin, the Tuscaloosa, Ala., native is moving into an analyst role. That move was likely necessary to retain him because the former Lions defensive lineman’s time as a GA should have expired after the 2024 season. The NCAA allows GAs to work three seasons total regardless of where they are spent, and Brown’s first came at Marshall under Charles Huff in 2022.

Brown returned to State College to replace and work under Deion Barnes, who was elevated to the full-time defensive line coach position from a graduate assistant spot before the 2023 season to replace John Scott Jr., who left for the NFL’s Detroit Lions. It was his second stop in State College, of course, as he played for Penn State from 2015-2017. Forced to medically retire before the 2018 season, he sought a second chance at Southern Missouri in 2019. There, he made nine tackles (one for loss) over nine games. He entered the coaching ranks in 2020 as a defensive assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Then, he spent a year as the defensive line coach at Eastern New Mexico University. After that, he joined Huff’s staff with the Thundering Herd.

“When I got hurt, I kind of got a chance to see it from the other side,” Brown told The Daily Collegian in 2022. “I became an undergraduate assistant at Penn State where I helped out with practice a little bit. I knew that was something that I wanted to do. So, as of right now, it’s something I’m pursuing, and I’m all in.”

He’s been all in with Penn State since returning. And, now he’ll be here at least one more year.

2025 Penn State football staff review

Penn State has made plenty of staff changes this offseason. Jim Knowles is in as the team’s new defensive coordinator. He brought Brent Zdebski and Shane Eachus with him. Stan Drayton is the Lions’ new running backs coach. Letterman Greg Gattuso joined the staff after an 11-year stint as the head coach at Albany as a senior defensive analyst. A different former PSU graduate assistant, Andrew Jackson, returns as an assistant defensive line coach in 2025. Trace McSorley is the new assistant quarterbacks coach. And various staffers have new titles. Analyst and ‘LBU’ legend Dan Connor is now officially the linebackers coach, for example.

Here’s a full list of the changes:

Keith Bruno – Assistant Special Teams Coordinator
Mark Dupuis – Assistant wide receivers coach
Greg Gattuso – Senior defensive analyst
Frank Leonard – Associate offensive line coach
Andrew Jackson – Assistant defensive line coach
Trace McSorley – Assistant Quarterbacks coach
Bill Queisert – Assistant Offensive Line coach
David Rocco – Assistant Tight Ends coach
Eric Sachse – Assistant specialists coach
James Urban – Senior offensive analyst
Charles Walker – Assistant running backs coach
Jordan Hill – Director of Player Development

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