Matt Campbell is working to keep two Penn State alumni, Dan Connor and Deion Barnes, on staff, and appears to be working to hire another to oversee the defense as a whole. Matt Zenitz of 247Sports reports that USC’s D’Anton Lynn is *the* target for Penn State’s current defensive coordinator job.
Lynn, a Penn State player from 2008 to 2011, was an NFL assistant from 2014 to 2022, transitioning from a seasonal intern with the New York Jets to the Ravens’ safeties coach. He moved on to the college game in 2023, serving as defensive coordinator at UCLA for one season and USC for the last two. In both cases, he took on horrendous units and immediately improved them greatly. Below is where the Bruins and Trojans defenses ranked in SP+ before Lynn’s arrival and then during his tenure.
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Before D’Anton Lynn: UCLA (2022) – 83rd
During D’Anton Lynn: UCLA (2023 – 17
Before D’Anton Lynn:USC (2023) – 105th
During D’Anton Lynn: USC (2024) – 48th
During D’Anton Lynn: USC (2025) – 35
At Penn State, he wouldn’t take over a terrible unit: the Nittany Lions, even in a down defensive season, finished 33rd in SP+. But there’s still the element of a lot of transition with NFL exits and potential moves in the transfer portal, so bringing in someone like Lynn, who gets better results right away, would be a great option.
So the boy is good. Really good. And it would be a great hire for Matt Campbell to land him just 12 months after they turned down the last guy.
We’ll see where this goes. It’s a good sign to get a tweet like that from Zenitz, but until there’s a “they’re closing a deal” tweet, it’s going to stay up in the air.