Bill O'Brien Won't Visit Penn State Next Season After All

After three weeks as Ohio State's offensive coordinator, O'Brien becomes Boston College's head coach.

Bill O'Brien won't return to Beaver Stadium next season after all. The former Penn State football coach, who spent three weeks as Ohio State's offensive coordinator, instead will be the next head coach at Boston College, which announced the hiring Friday. O'Brien replaces Jeff Hafley, who left at the end of January to become defensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers.

O'Brien, who spent the past season as the New England Patriots offensive coordinator, is a Massachusetts native whose family planned to live in Boston while he worked in Columbus, according to ESPN. The change allows O'Brien to become a head coach again while remaining with his family.

And thus, O'Brien's anticipated return to Beaver Stadium with the Buckeyes on Nov. 2 will not happen. Instead, O'Brien will take over a team that went 7-6 last season, finished ninth in the ACC and defeated SMU in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl. Boston College will introduce O'Brien at a news conference Thursday.

"When we embarked on this search, we prioritized finding a coach who believes in our mission and vision, who has a plan for greatness on and off the field, and who will work tirelessly to elevate BC Football," Boston College athletic director Blake James said in a statement. "Bill is a gifted leader who has had a tremendous amount of success as a head coach and coordinator at both the collegiate and NFL levels. His passion for teaching football and developing young men make him a great fit to lead Boston College to greater heights."

O'Brien will become a head coach for the third time. He went 15-9 in two seasons at Penn State during the most acute years of the sanctions that limited the program's scholarships and barred it from bowl eligibility. O'Brien won three national coach-of-the-year awards for leading the Nittany Lions to an 8-4 record in 2012. That team is memorialized on Penn State's Ring of Honor at Beaver Stadium.

In 2012, O'Brien guided the Nittany Lions to a 16-10 victory over Wisconsin at Beaver Stadium. Afterward, he gave the infamous "bunch of fighters" interview to ESPN. On New Year's Eve of 2013, after completing a 7-5 season, O'Brien left to become the head coach of the Houston Texans.

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O'Brien spent seven seasons as the head coach in Houston, worked as Nick Saban's offensive coordinator in Alabama for two years and returned to the New England Patriots in 2023 for a second stint as offensive coordinator. When the Patriots and Bill Belichick parted ways, O'Brien was a free agent. Ohio State coach Ryan Day swooped in with a remarkable offer. 

But less than two weeks later, Hafley left Boston College, opening a new opportunity for O'Brien. At a Signing Day media session in Columbus, Day said he had contingency plans if O'Brien were to leave.

“It isn't just one of those situations where you just take out one guy and put another guy in there and it's like, ‘OK, move on.’ It doesn't work that way,” Day told reporters in Columbus. “But yes, we did talk to different people for that position, and we'll have contingency plans in place. Hopefully we don't have to go down that road. But if we do, then we’ll adapt.”

Evidently, Day has adapted quickly. Later Friday, Ohio State announced the hiring of UCLA head coach Chip Kelly as its new offensive coordinator. Kelly joins Day's staff after six seasons as UCLA's head coach.

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