Why Penn State, and why return to coaching now, for Stan Drayton?: 'I just had to get back into it'
Stan Drayton can fairly be called a coaching lifer. The 53-year-old Cleveland, Ohio native has spent 32 years, or roughly 60 percent of his time on Earth, instructing football players in some capacity. And so, as he said on Monday during his introductory news conference at Penn State, where he is the program’s new running backs coach, sitting on the sidelines after Temple fired him as its head coach near the end of his third season there in November of 2024 became harder and harder as time went by.
“My wife does not receive my coaching very well,” Drayton joked after being serious about a lack of sleep and other frustration from being out of the coaching game. “So I channel that energy somewhere. And really found out early on, when lacking the sleep and just kind of itching to get around the game, and always watching ESPN, [and] reading about football all the time, and found out that football was just my balance. It’s going to balance me out.
“And everybody in the household is happy when I’m coaching. And it can be very agitating to them when I’m not coaching. So it’s just in me. And I just love being around young people. I love helping young people reach their full potential and help them achieve the dreams they have for themselves. And I just think that’s something that is my calling. So I just had to get back into it.”
Drayton said Penn State coach James Franklin called him shortly after the Owls let him go to offer support. That included a chance to sit in on the program’s meetings. But, Drayton wanted to devote the time immediately after he was fired toward his wife and two daughters.
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Eventually, though, opportunities presented themselves for him to become a senior analyst within some college football program in 2025. Those interested him. But, when Ja’Juan Seider left Penn State for the running backs coach job at Notre Dame on Feb. 9, a new opportunity presented itself. Drayton interviewed with Franklin on Feb. 10. Four days later, he was officially announced as Seider’s replacement. Now, he’s ready to get to work with a backfield that returns senior stars Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen plus numerous talented underclassmen.
“It really happened organically,” Drayton said. “The longer I stayed idled, the more and more I got agitated with it. As time went on, I just got the itch again.
“So, you know, I think we interviewed on February the 10th, and it became really real. That was something that I wanted to do. On this interview, I got even more excited about the opportunity, and I’m glad it took place on the 14th, when it was that time for me to make a decision on that. So very, very happy to be here, and definitely something that I’m excited to be a part of right now.”
