New Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz on ‘uncommon’ opportunity, coaching style and more

STATE COLLEGE — Manny Diaz called the week he began as the head coach at Miami (Fla.) and ended as the defensive coordinator at Penn State a “whirlwind,” but even while losing his dream job, moving up the East Coast and beginning a new, unexpected chapter in his life, Diaz got to work right away.

“I will tell you that my first day on the job, you were the first video I put on,” Diaz told La Salle College four-star Abdul Carter in a video call during Penn State’s National Signing Day ceremony Wednesday. “And after about four plays, I said, ‘Heck yeah, this is exactly why I came to coach linebackers and defense at Penn State.’ So I’m thankful for all the hard work the staff did to get you here. … We’re going to go be great together.”

Miami — which was called Diaz’s “dream job” in his official team bio — fired the 47-year-old Diaz last Monday. Penn State announced it hired Diaz to be its defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Saturday. And Wednesday, Diaz was in blue and white with his new coworkers welcoming in Penn State’s highly regarded Class of 2022.

It was Diaz’s first public appearance since his hiring, and beyond his critique of Carter, one of his future linebackers at Penn State, Diaz offered some insight on his expectations, style and more during an interview with Penn State’s in-house media during the program’s signing day live stream. Diaz is scheduled to hold a news conference Friday.

Penn State coach James Franklin reached out to him in the middle of the week, Diaz said. Franklin was searching for a defensive coordinator to replace longtime defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Brent Pry, who took the Virginia Tech earlier this month. Pry had worked with Franklin for the past 11 seasons.

Despite everything going on in his life, Diaz knew what the Penn State job represented.

“Boy, last week was a whirlwind,” Diaz said. “The days, they all seem to run together, but it was — yeah, it was sometime middle of last week, and it was hard for me to wrap my brain around, ‘Hey, listen, at what point are going to jump back into this thing?’ But to coach defense at Penn State, to coach linebackers at Penn State, that’s uncommon. [People] can work in this profession their entire lives and wish they had a chance to coach here and especially to coach defense and linebackers, and the more we spoke and what his vision was and how he operated and the values that he was about, I think we found that we were aligned. There was already an alignment defensively, and it ticked all the boxes.”

Earlier this month, Franklin said part of his criteria for replacing Pry would be finding a coordinator with a similar philosophy and scheme to maximize the defensive talent currently on the roster and about to sign, like Carter, McDonogh School (Md.) four-star Dani Dennis-Sutton, Northeast four-star Ken Talley and and Imhotep Charter three-star Keon Wylie.

Diaz, who has defensive coordinator stints at Middle Tennessee (2006-09), Mississippi State (2010, 2015), Texas (2011-13), Louisiana Tech (2014) and Miami (2016-18) on his resume, fit the bill.

“To me, the coaching style, it’s, ‘What would you want as a player?’ You want a coach that has your back,” Diaz said. “You want a coach that’s completely dedicated to maximizing your potential on and off the field, and then I like the defense to play the way I would like to watch a defense play. We want to be fast, we want to be aggressive.

“Our job as coaches is to when they’re out there, they can really let their athletic ability shine, and that to me, that comes from having great relationships with your players, and I think that always happens when they know you’re in it for them. I know that we like to talk about coaches, but the players play and our job is to serve them and to see them succeed.”

Diaz said it took only 48 hours in State College to “see why this place is special and it’s a little bit unique, it’s different, and I think that it’s cool.” And when Penn State’s recruits were on visits last weekend, the new coach used that as an opportunity to pick their brains about why they were going to sign on to play for Franklin and the Nittany Lions.

And it turned out their reasons weren’t much different, Diaz said.

“The people,” Diaz said. “You want to be around great people, you want to be around like-minded people, and you want to have a chance to compete and win for championships. As I’ve seen it with the staff here and the players that we have, the players that we’re going to continue to add here — not just in this class, we’re already working on the next class and the class after that — you want to have a chance to win and we’ve got a chance to win here at Penn State.”

Diaz already has his pitch to recruit linebackers to the school known as “Linebacker U.” for its history of churning out high-level players like Micah Parsons, Sean Lee, Paul Posluszny, LaVar Arrington and others.

“You want to be held to a high standard, right?” Diaz said. “All great people, all champions want to be held to a really high standard. You mention like to play linebacker, you saw some of the great ones that signed with us this morning. That’s a heavy shirt to put on. There’s a lot of expectation to coach linebackers, there’s a lot of expectation to play linebacker, and you want young men that strive to that.”

Diaz’s defense won’t make its debut until Sept. 3 when Penn State faces Purdue on the road to open the season. For now, the infrastructure around the defensive coordinator — special teams coordinator/outside linebackers coach Joe Lorig, cornerbacks coach Terry M. Smith, co-defensive coordinator/safeties coach Anthony Poindexter, defensive line coach John Scott Jr. — remains intact.

Things, of course, can change quickly this time of year. Diaz has seen that firsthand.

Diaz was asked what the biggest thing he’s learned over the past week was. He called it a good question, and he took a moment to think it over. He’s a man who lost his dream job in a public and rather humiliating fashion with Miami powerbrokers openly courting his replacement, Oregon’s Miami Cristobal, while his fate hung in the balance.

Diaz came back part of the recruiting pitch that got him back to Penn State: the people.

“I think any time you have a transition and you get a chance to meet new people, you think about all the relationships that you have in this profession,” Diaz said. “Those relationships do not end, and I know people like to be cynical at times about college football, and then you come here and you see Coach Franklin, you see the staff, you see the relationships they have with their team with their former players, that’s really the bond that ties the whole thing together. It’s about the relationships, and I think you always get a chance to reflect on that when you’re in a moment of transition.”