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What can Penn State gain by adding two former coordinator as analysts? James Franklin explains

Greg Pickelby:Greg Pickel•07/28/23•

GregPickel

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Robb Smith. (Photo By Jerry Holt/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

INDIANAPOLIS — Penn State lists longtime college football coach and six-time coordinator Robb Smith as a defensive analyst and analytics coordinator. However, what that appears to mean and what it actually will mean for the Nittany Lions are two different things. As it turns out, Smith will be putting his expertise to use to help his new program on the other side of the ball.

“Robb’s on offense,” Penn State coach James Franklin said at Big Ten Media Days on Wednesday. “I think there’s a ton of value of having defensive guys in the offensive room and offensive guys in the defensive room in that analyst role, so you have different perspectives and lenses on how we look at things.

“The reality is offensive guys and defensive guys look at the game very differently. So there’s a ton of value with having that perspective in the room.”

Smith joined the Nittany Lions after spending one season as the defensive coordinator at Duke. Before that, he orchestrated defenses at Rutgers, Arkansas, and Minnesota. He is one of two former coordinators to join the Penn State analysts room this offseason. The other is Ola Adams. A former four-year starter at Concord University, he led Villanova’s defense to new heights and most recently was a staff member of the Denver Broncos, where he worked with the secondary.

“Ola, as we all know, especially the people that cover Penn State closely, Ola did a great job when he was the defensive coordinator at Villanova,” Franklin said. “A lot of people that I know from the DMV thought very highly of him, so he’s a guy I’ve been tracking for a while.”

That tracking led to him joining an analyst staff that now has at least 12 members.

Tracking Penn State staff changes ahead of the 2023 season

Smith and Adams are not the only new Penn State hires ahead of the 2023 season. Letterman Calvin Lowry returned to the program in an analyst role. And Eric Sachse, a former Boise State kicker, was brought on board as a special teams analyst.

In the recruiting department, DJ Bryant joins the program from Colorado. And, Khalil Ahmad joins the Lions after a stint at Syracuse while Brett Arnold is an assistant recruiting coordinator who came from Delaware.

There have been on-field changes too, of course. Lions letterman Torrence Brown and Chris Seh are new graduate assistants. Brown replaces Deion Barnes, who is now the first-year defensive line coach at Penn State while Seh takes over for Dwayne Scott, who left for Pittsburgh. Former analyst Danny O’Brien has moved into a graduate assistant role. Marques Hagans is also in his initial season as the team’s receivers coach. Barnes replaces John Scott Jr., who left for the NFL’s Detroit Lions. Hagans took over for Taylor Stubblefield, who was fired and is now at Air Force.

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