Thoughts of becoming a coach crossed Danny O’Brien’s mind periodically while he was playing hockey, basketball and football at the youth level, first in Minnesota and then in North Carolina.
But O’Brien didn’t seriously consider coaching as a profession until after he had committed to Maryland 15 years ago.
“I’ll never forget it,” O’Brien said. “I got my first playbook. I went up there to visit and went through the installs. It just clicked. I was like, ‘I want to do this one day.’ I knew then I definitely wanted to coach.”
The 33-year-old O’Brien is in his first full season as Penn State’s quarterbacks coach after spending the last three seasons as an analyst and graduate assistant. With new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki not overseeing one specific area, head coach James Franklin has put O’Brien in charge of directing the most important position on his football team.
“I was honored by it and I was motivated by it,” O’Brien said. “With this being the first room to myself at a place like this, it’s not a responsibility I take lightly. I don’t feel entitled to it. I feel very lucky. I want to prove they made the right decision by getting our guys prepared. That’s how I wake up every morning.”
Franklin has known O’Brien for a long time. He was Maryland’s offensive coordinator when he recruited O’Brien to play quarterback for the Terrapins. Under the guidance of Franklin and then-Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen, O’Brien was named the Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Year in 2010.
“I think he’s a rising star in the (coaching) profession,” Franklin said last year. “I really do.”
Franklin is not alone. Nittany Lions quarterbacks Drew Allar and Beau Pribula also sing the praises for the guy who’s been a coach, mentor and friend to them.
“When I first met him I felt like I could relate to him a lot because he was a younger coach and not too far removed from playing football,” Pribula said. “Now that I’ve known him for a while and I know how he works, I think he’s one of the smartest minds in college football.”
O’Brien was a standout high school quarterback at East Forsyth in Kernersville, N.C., situated between Winston-Salem and Greensboro. He was rated a three-star prospect and chose Maryland over Duke and East Carolina.
After he was redshirted in 2009, he became the starter in 2010 when an injury sidelined the starter. He set several school records and passed for 2,478 yards and 22 touchdowns.
But shortly after Friedgen was named the ACC Coach of the Year following an 8-4 regular season, Maryland fired him. A day earlier, Franklin had left to become head coach at Vanderbilt.
That changed everything for O’Brien, who began the 2011 season as Maryland’s starter before new coach Randy Edsall began alternating him with another quarterback. O’Brien transferred to Wisconsin, where he spent one year, and finished his college career at Division II Catawba in 2013.
He spent the next six seasons as a backup quarterback for three teams in the Canadian Football League. He retired after the 2019 season with an eye on becoming a coach. He actually became the running backs coach for the B.C. Lions in 2020, but the season was canceled because of the pandemic.
An old friend reached out to him in early 2021 about an opening on his staff at Penn State.
“Me and Coach (Franklin) had always stayed in touch,” O’Brien recalled. “Something became available here. Honestly, it was just perfect timing. It was a crazy full-circle moment.”
O’Brien spent his first two seasons with the Nittany Lions as an offensive analyst. He was elevated to graduate assistant and moved to the sideline for the 2023 season.
With the Penn State quarterbacks, he has tried to emulate how Franklin coached him during their days together at Maryland.
“A lot of how I approach being a coach stems from my experience as a player,” O’Brien said. “The guys who invested in me as more than a player got the most out of me. When you know a coach cares about you more than how you can throw a ball, they’re able to coach you harder.
“I approach the game how Coach taught me. He was such a comforting force on the sideline, speaking the same language. I knew he cared about me. He was a relational guy who I trusted a lot.”
Allar and Pribula clearly trust O’Brien, who makes himself available to all the quarterbacks 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“I just like his personality,” Allar said. “He’s really easy to talk to, not only with football but in general: life, school and all those types of things. It’s him being on the younger side. He’s able to relate his own personal experiences, what he liked about being coached and what he didn’t like about being coached.
“I talk to Danny every day. We talk away from the field a lot. He always values our opinions. He makes it very simple for us.”
Allar and Pribula are confident that O’Brien will be a successful head coach one day because of his knowledge of the game, his way with people and his work ethic.
“Danny can accomplish whatever he sets his mind to,” Pribula said. “Whatever he wants to do in life, whether that’s as a head coach or an OC, I think he’ll be successful.”
O’Brien said he couldn’t imagine doing anything other than coaching football.
“I love the game and the X’s and O’s as much as anybody,” he said. “I love the people you meet, the relationships, the places you go, the locker room environment and being part of the lives of 18- to 23-year-olds. I just love every part of it.
“It’s definitely what I was meant to do.”
