Penn State D-Coordinator Resigns, Takes Same Position At Ga. Tech

[ESPN] Bill O’Brien is staying at Penn State after a brief flirtation with the NFL, but one of his top assistants and closest friends is not. Defensive coordinator Ted Roof resigned Wednesday after spending just one season at Penn State and took the same position with Georgia Tech, his alma mater. O’Brien acted quickly in promoting Nittany Lions secondary coach John Butler to defensive coordinator. Few are surprised to see Roof on the move again, as Georgia Tech becomes his fifth coaching stop since the 2008 season (Minnesota, Auburn, Central Florida, Penn State). He has strong ties to the state and to the school, where he served as linebackers coach in 1998 and defensive coordinator from 1999-2001. But he’s also extremely tight with O’Brien, who he worked with at his previous stop at Georgia Tech. O’Brien later joined Roof at Duke when Roof served as Blue Devils’ head coach. “It’s very important to keep your staff intact, but you have to be careful there, too, because I think it’s important for these guys to they want to move up the ladder,” O’Brien said Monday at a news conference. “So you’ve got some fantastic coaches on our staff chances that are going to have chances probably maybe not this year but maybe in other years of being coordinators or even head coaches. You never want to hold those guys back from being able to do that, and I never will. But obviously from a continuity standpoint you’d love to keep them intact and do the best you can with that.”

Not shocked about this at all. As annoying as it is, some people are just job-hoppers. I obviously don’t know the details behind this move and I’m not trying to make it seem like I do, but you have to wonder what kind of person would do that to BOB, especially after the loyalty that BOB showed to him the previous summer. I would be totally fine with it if he were the new head coach at Georgia Tech, but this is a lateral move at best (and that’s being extremely generous calling it a “lateral move” considering Georgia Tech lost to Middle Tennessee by 21 at home last year). This just rubs me the wrong way.

Bill O'Brien in statement: "Ted is a great coach and person. He earned the respect of our players and they enjoyed playing for him."