Bill O’Brien: ‘Hell no!’ he wouldn’t recruit the Penn State players (Video)

When Lane Kiffin shamelessly began recruiting former Penn State running back Silas Redd, who eventually transferred to USC, most people said that that is something all college football coaches would do. Not Bill O’Brien, man of morals that he is.

The current Penn State football coach, who took the job while the school was being investigated for potentially covering up the actions of pedophile Jerry Sandusky, says he’s above such reprehensible conduct (comments at the 7:00 mark in the video above).

“Hell no!” O’Brien said. “That’s not the right thing to do in my opinion. So I wouldn’t do that.

“I’m not fighting for my career, I’m fighting for Penn State,” O’Brien said. “For what’s right about this football program and so at the end of the day, like I said, these coaches are playing by the rules. That’s what they’re doing.”

I love the way that O’Brien is trying to make himself into a martyr who is leading Penn State football through its “dark ages” where they feel they must stick together to persevere. This man willingly accepted a job at a school he knew was going to be punished. He didn’t care about the culture of covering up child rapes to protect the program that exists/existed at Penn State; he just cared about taking over a program with a winning tradition. In many ways what he has done is much worse than any coaches poaching his players who, by the way, are free to transfer elsewhere.

Helmet smack to Dr. Saturday