The college football coaching merry-go-round took a strange turn this offseason when Jim Knowles switched sides and left defending champions Ohio State for Penn State to become the Nittany Lions’ defensive coordinator. The 65 year-old had been in charge of the Buckeyes defense since 2022.
Jim Knowles Explains Why Penn State Was the Right Fit
Not long after Ohio State won the championship, Knowles agreed to a deal that would make him the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the nation with a $3.1 million salary. The deal also reportedly includes bonus money that could eclipse $1 million if Penn State wins a national championship.
Knowles explained that his decision to leave Ohio State was born out of the program’s lack of a desire to get an extension with him done before its national championship game win.
He admitted that he “would not have explored or considered other options” had Ohio State offered him an extension prior to its title victory over Notre Dame, but things became “awkward” in the aftermath of the win as he still didn’t have a deal in place.
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However, Knowles has reiterated that the move to Penn State is the right as he’s where he “wanted to be”.
“You have these dreams when you get into the profession, not only reaching the highest level but being able to coach at the school that you were a fan of when you were a young boy and watching it on TV and just thinking that Penn State was everything great about college football and aspiring to that level and never reaching it as a player and then being able to finally do it as a coach, it’s a big deal to me but it represented a lot of hard work and I don’t tend to look back.” He told Adam Breneman.
But there’s a sense of ‘Heyy this is all the hours you put in’, that it was worth it because you now get to the point to have had some where you choose a little bit on where you want to be rather than just going to the next available job . You get older and have a little bit of a resume, you get to say – okay, this is where I want to be and Penn State was that for me”.
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Knowles helped Ohio State’s defense rank first in the nation in yards (254.6 per game) and points allowed (12.9 per game) in 2024 and they were also top three for both department in 2023. Penn State have made a very solid acquisition.
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