Penn State Football will hire former Purdue co-defensive coordinator Anthony Poindexter to be the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach for the Nittany Lions.
Penn State Football will hire Purdue’s co-defensive coordinator Anthony Poindexter, according to a Yahoo! Sports report. Poindexter will serve as the co-defensive coordinator as well as safeties coach on head coach James Franklin’s staff.
Poindexter will replace Tim Banks who left Happy Valley last week to become the defensive coordinator at the University of Tennessee after five years with Penn State Football.
The new defensive assistant is a former second team All-American at the University of Virginia and a newly inducted member of the College Football Hall of Fame. He spent the last four years at Purdue, prior to that he was the defensive coordinator and safeties coach at UConn from 2014-2016.
This was a crucial hire as Franklin completes his coaching staff in what he himself has called a “critical” offseason for his program.
Let’s get to know Penn State Football’s new defensive assistant:
Poindexter should hold down the DMV area for the Nittany Lions
Poindexter is a native of Virginia and attended the University of Virginia, where he was a consensus two-time First Team All-American and was the 1998 ACC Defensive Player of the Year.
After a brief stint in the NFL that was cut short due to injuries, he returned to his alma mater and coached there for 11 seasons, where he started his career as a GA and ended it as the safeties coach.
Poindexter is touted as a great recruiter in college football circles, especially in the DMV area which has been a pipeline of talent for the Nittany Lions going back to the Joe Paterno era.
Penn State Football currently has about 28 players on the roster from the DMV area and with the loss of Banks and Bowen from the staff, two guys who were instrumental in getting those players to campus, it was vital Franklin brought on a coach who could fill that role.
The Nittany Lions’ 2021 recruiting class has fallen well behind expectations, finishing 21st in the country, and is in need of a major bounce back in 2022, with a class that currently sits at fourth according to 247sports.