After Ohio State-Penn State, this coordinator got himself a P4 job, this one did not

Were you paying attention? Almost certainly lost in the shuffle of Saturday afternoon's low-scoring thriller between the No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes and the No. 3 Penn State Nittany Lions were the game plans of each team's respected coordinators. While Tom Allen and Chip Kelly were Power Five head coaches last year, 2025 will be the year for Jim Knowles, but maybe not just yet for Andy Kotelnicki.

Yes, Ohio State went into Happy Valley to win the signature game of the day over Penn State 20-13, but it was the manner in which these teams won and lost that resonated the most with me. While Ryan Day is off the hot seat for now in Columbus, James Franklin is certainly starting to feel the heat. How do you not win this critical game at home when you have two very well-thought-of coordinators?

Well, I think it may have had something to do with Knowles' Ohio State defense completely shutting down Kotelnicki's offense. Keep in mind that Day is an offensive-minded head coach just like Franklin. Thus, he needs to lean on a keen defensive mind like Knowles to make sure that side of the ball is playing up to standard. Franklin continues to prove that he is just another snake oil salesman coach.

Although I do like Kotelinick's upside as a future head coach, you could not score an offenisve touchdown at home? Penn State's lone trip to pay dirt in the game came on a Will Howard pick-six.

Jim Knowles is ready for a Power Four job, while Andy Kotelnicki is not

Knowles was a finalist for the Duke job that ultimately went to former Penn State defensive coordinator and Miami head coach Manny Diaz. Even with the Blue Devils losing to his former team in Miami Gardens, so what? This is his first year on the job in Durham, and he already has Duke bowling. It may have gone differently for Knowles, but he is finally ready for his big day in the sun as a coach.

In time, Kotelnicki will be ready, but we may have taken the buns out of the oven a bit too prematurely. While he may be an ideal replacement for Mack Brown at North Carolina, we have to accept that if he does get a job like that he will be learning on the fly. What I think everyone forgets all the time, including me, is that Knowles has already been the head coach before at his alma mater of Cornell.

He may have been a sub-.500 head coach leading the Big Red, but that was well over a decade ago. Again, the right job needs to open up for him, but he has shown an ability to coach defense at a very high level at three different places previously: Duke under David Cutcliffe, Oklahoma State under Mike Gundy and now under Ryan Day at Ohio State. What if he potentially goes back to Stillwater in 2025?

Regardless, it feels like we identified a coordinator who will be a head coach next season in Knowles.