2233 ran off Bill O'Brien.
Why Bill O'Brien left Ped State:
Bill O’Brien, as expected, is leaving Penn State after two seasons to become head coach of the Houston Texans.
Despite performing well in leading the Nittany Lions out of the Jerry Sandusky mess, O’Brien, it has been reported all fall, has been itching to return to the NFL and now we have a better idea of just why he’d leave State College, where he was 15-9. David Jones, in a column on Pennlive.com, writes of O’Brien’s frustrations at succeeding Joe Paterno, dealing with NCAA sanctions stemming from the Sandusky scandal and what he felt was a lack of leadership at the school. Jones spoke with O’Brien after assistant coach Ron Vanderlinden left the program, but did not publish the conversation until today. It’s a revealing look at the pressures of the job for an “outsider” in State College and how it felt to succeed a legendary coach.
“You can print this: You can print that I don’t really give a [expletive] what the ‘Paterno people’ think about what I do with this program,” he told Jones. “I’ve done everything I can to show respect to Coach Paterno. Everything in my power. So I could really care less about what the Paterno faction of people, or whatever you call them, think about what I do with the program. I’m tired of it.
“For any ‘Paterno person’ to have any objection to what I’m doing, it makes me wanna put my fist through this windshield [he was in a car at the time] right now.”
He was just getting started:
“I’m trying to field the most competitive football team I can with near-death penalty [expletive] sanctions. Every time I say something like that and somebody prints it, it’s skewed as an excuse. And I’m not an excuse-maker. I’m trying to do the best I can for the kids in that program. That’s all I care about is the kids in that program. As long as I’m the head football coach here.”