According to USA Today’s Jonny Saraceno, Penn State is set to hire New England Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien as it’s next head football coach.  Saraceno tweeted early Sunday that the two sides only need to work out contract details before O’Brien is officially named Paterno’s successor.

So, Penn Staters can start asking just who is this guy if in fact he become the answer to the trivia question “Who succeeded Joe Paterno?”  Currently, O’Brien is in his fifth season on Bill Belichick’s coaching staff in New England and is in his first season as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator. He spent the previous two seasons as the quarterbacks coach and called all the offensive plays before being officially named the offensive coordinator. His contract with New England is set to expire after this season.

OK, so he knows how to say “throw it to Gronkowski.” What does he know about college football?

O’Brien began his coaching career in the college ranks. His first coaching job was at his alma mater Brown in 1993.  The next year he moved to coaching inside linebackers.  He spent the next three seasons (1995–1997) as an offensive graduate assistant at Georgia Tech.  In 1998, O’Brien became the Yellow Jackets’ running backs coach until 2000. For the next two seasons, O’Brien served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach; being named assistant head coach in 2002 season. In 2003, he moved up the ACC road to become the running backs coach at Maryland. He spent two seasons in College Park before being named the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at  Duke in 2005.

So, there you have it. Now we wait to see if this is the guy who takes what promises to be a challenging job. Besides, anybody who has the balls to call out Tom Brady can’t be all bad.