Two of Penn State football’s position coaches are joining James Franklin at Virginia Tech.
Hours after word got out that tight ends coach Ty Howle was leaving to be Virginia Tech’s offensive coordinator, Pete Thamel of ESPN reported that quarterbacks coach Danny O’Brien is also going to Blacksburg.
O’Brien had been Penn State’s quarterbacks coach for two seasons, overseeing the development of QBs such as Drew Allar, Beau Pribula and Ethan Grunkemeyer. Allar ended 2024 with 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions, completing 66.5% of his passes.
In 2025, Allar completed 64.8% of his passes, throwing eight touchdowns and three interceptions before suffering a season-ending injury during its sixth game.
After Allar’s injury, Ethan Grunkemeyer became Penn State’s starting QB, and under O’Brien’s watch, Grunkemeyer improved week by week.
Over the last two games of the season, Grunkemeyer completed 28 of 33 passes with two touchdowns and no interceptions.
O’Brien’s ties with Franklin go back to long before both worked together at Penn State. O’Brien played at Maryland in the early 2010s when Franklin was an assistant coach.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.After college, O’Brien played professional football in the CFL for six seasons. After his playing career ended in 2019, he started his coaching career in 2020 with the BC Lions.
From there, O’Brien moved onto Happy Valley, where he was an offensive analyst for the 2021 and ‘22 seasons. In 2023, O’Brien upgraded to graduated assistant, and the next year, he became the quarterbacks coach.
So who will succeed O’Brien as QB coach?
A natural place to look would be Iowa State, where Matt Campbell was before coming to Happy Valley. Iowa State’s current QB coach is Jake Waters, who has been in that role since 2024 and had been on Campbell’s staff for a today of five seasons.
Penn State could also stay in-house and promote QB great and assistant QB coach Trace McSorley, so that’s something to keep in mind.
