A bevy of names have already been mentioned as candidates for Penn State’s current head coaching vacancy after the university cut ties with James Franklin.
After three devastating defeats in a row — to Oregon in double overtime, a shocker on the road at UCLA and a one-point home loss to Northwestern — Franklin was let go. Longtime assistant Terry Smith is currently serving as head coach on an interim basis.
Current Nebraska head coach Matt Ruhle is getting the most buzz to replace Franklin due to his previous ties to the Nittany Lions, but another coach who has a history with Penn State just saw his name thrown into the mix by Chris “The Bear” Fallica of Fox Sports: Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady.
Brady was a Penn State graduate assistant in 2015 and 2016, so he’s more than a tad familiar with Happy Valley. Does that mean he’d leave his current job as an assistant in the NFL to take the reins for the Nittany Lions?
Chris Fallica: I’d Put Money on Bills OC Joe Brady as Next Penn State Head Coach
GettyBills OC Joe Brady has been mentioned as a possibility to be Penn State’s next football coach.
Firing Franklin also meant the university was left with a staggering $49 million buyout of his contract, the second-largest in college football history. Fallica thinks Bills owner, CEO and president Terry Pegula, who donated $100 million in 2010 to fund the hockey team’s Pegula Ice Arena and sits on Penn State’s Board of Trustees, might be pulling some strings and pushing Brady’s involvement.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if, behind the scenes, Pegula — the owner of the Bills, big money guy and is kind of the one footing the bill for most of the buyout — maybe there’s some things going on behind the scenes [where he’s saying], ‘I’ll ante up the buyout money, but Joe Brady’s going to be our next head coach,’” Fallica said on “Bear Bets” (h/t Fox Sports).
“I don’t know if that’s going on, but there’s a connection there between Pegula and Penn State. Obviously, Joe Brady, how great he was in college at LSU and now with the Buffalo Bills, an offensive-minded head coach. That’s the biggest thing about Penn State right now. People are so aggravated about the lack of development with the quarterback play and on the offensive side of the ball.”
Brady’s Experience Working With QBs Makes Him
At LSU in 2019, Brady won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant, and won a national championship working with Joe Burrow. Carolina tapped him as OC in 2020, and Buffalo hired him as quarterbacks coach in 2022. When the Bills let Ken Dorsey go in November of 2023, Brady steadied the ship well enough to have the interim tag removed.
During his first full season as OC in 2024, the Bills rang up a franchise-record 525 points (30.9 per game) and went 13–4, while Josh Allen took home the NFL MVP award.
So, is he a good candidate for the Nittany Lions? If Penn State wants to see more explosive plays on offense and an elevated quarterbacks room, he wouldn’t be a bad choice. His name has been mentioned as a head coaching candidate in the NFL already, and move back to the college ranks wouldn’t be all that surprising.
He doesn’t have any head coaching experience, but that likely wouldn’t deter Penn State if it were serious about hiring him. This is all speculation, of course, but Brady’s connection to Penn State — and Pegula’s — are very real. That alone might make the Bills OC a dark horse candidate to watch.
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