Penn State Football

Coaching Search Update: Top Candidate Emerges For Penn State RB Coach Job

Published

February 13, 2025

Stan Drayton is a name that has a lot of steam for the next Penn State RB coach

PHILADELPHIA, PA - SEPTEMBER 26: Temple head coach Stan Drayton looks on during the game between the Army Black Knights and the Temple Owls on September 26th, 2024 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA. (Photo by Terence Lewis/Icon Sportswire)

A frontrunner has emerged in the search to succeed Ja’Juan Seider as Penn State football’s RB coach.

Nittany Sports Now can confirm that James Franklin and co. see Stan Drayton, most recently the head coach at Temple, as the top choice succeed Seider, who was there for seven seasons.

FootballScoop reported Thursday afternoon that Drayton is the “top candidate.”

Drayton has been around a while.

He began his coaching career in 1993 at Allegheny College— where he played running back from 1989-92– as the running backs coach, and since then, 25 of his 32 seasons in coaching have been as RB coach. In that time, he’s been a national champ twice, both working under Urban Meyer (2006 at Florida, 2014 at Ohio State). He also helped develop Ezekiel Elliot (OSU) and Bijan Robinson (Texas) into top 10 picks.

His work at Texas, where he was associate head coach, running backs coach and run game coordinator from 2017-21, helped land him the head coaching job at Temple.

ROUGH RUN IN PHILLY

Unfortunately for Drayton, his head coaching run wasn’t as successful as his previous stops. Over three seasons at Temple, he was 9-25, winning exactly three games each year. Drayton didn’t even make it through his third full season, getting fired with two games left.

Penn State has become somewhat of a “coaching rehab” in recent years. Manny Diaz was fired as Miami’s head coach in December 2021 and hired as Penn State’s defensive coordinator. Tom Allen experienced something similar the next winter at Indiana. We’ll see if Drayton falls in that line.