Offensive coordinator from Alabama, Steve Sarkisian, took up the vacant head coach position at Texas earlier this month, leaving a hole in the Crimson Tide coaching staff during the 2021 college soccer season. That vacancy was almost filled. The Athletics shortly before the kick-off was announced of the College Football Playoff National Championship Monday that Bill O’Brien, the former coach of the Houston Texans and Penn State Nittany Lions, is expected to be named as Sarkisian’s successor later this week.
Accepting the position would mean O’Brien’s return to the sidelines for the university for the first time since 2013, when he finished the second of his two seasons as coach at Penn State. The Nittany Lions finished fourth in the Big Ten in both seasons, and in the top three in the passing. He won the Paul “Bear” Bryant Award and the Maxwell Coach of the Year after an 8-4 campaign in the first season since Joe Paterno’s departure.
That, of course, will come in handy in the unfortunate Alabama offense that has developed since coach Nick Saban appointed Lane Kiffin to run the unit before the 2014 season. O’Brien has plenty of college football experience on hand. He stopped working as an assistant coach at Brown, Georgia Tech, Maryland and Duke between 1993 and 2006.
It was reported last week that O’Brien was with the coaching staff in Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Former New York Jets coach Adam Gase has also been nominated for the job. O’Brien was sacked by the Texans after a 0-4 start to the 2020 NFL season.