The Nittany Lions have made their move at offensive coordinator.
After firing Mike Yurcich midseason due to a stagnant offense that kept Penn State from beating either Michigan or Ohio State in games their defense put them in position to, coach James Franklin was ready to dive into his search for a new offensive coordinator following the teams 42-0 blowout of Michigan State to end the 2023 season.
Not even a week later, Bruce Feldman reports a hire is in the works and Kansas OC Andy Kotelnicki will be headed to State College to take the same position there.
SOURCE: Kansas offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki is expected to become the next OC at Penn State.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) November 30, 2023
Kotelnicki has had stops at Wisconsin-Whitewater, Buffalo and most recently Kansas. At each stop he has turned the program into a high-powered offense.
In his most recent stop, his first at a Power 5 school, he was able to land recruits and put together an offense that ranked top-10 in the nation in each of the last two years. Those offenses averaged over 30 points per game.
The Penn State running back depth chart figures to be deep, and that will certainly help in Kotelnicki’s RPO-heavy system that does tend to favor running the ball a bit.
It will be interesting to see how well he is able to do at recruiting receivers, since that was the clear weakness on the offense this past season for the Nittany Lions.
Now, Penn State’s immediate focus will continue to be retainment of both players and defensive coordinator Manny Diaz, who has been interviewed for head coaching vacancies already.
