I was talking national championships with Penn State’s new running back coach Stan Drayton on Tuesday evening, after the Nittany Lions’ practice in a small media scrum of four or five reporters in Holuba Hall.
Drayton knows No. 1s. And when it comes to national titles, Drayton knows whereof he speaks.
As a running back at Allegheny College in Meadville, he helped lead Allegheny — the oldest college in continuous existence under the same name west of the Allegheny Mountains — to a Division III national championship and a 13-0-1 record in 1990.
And he was a stud doing it. Drayton graduated Allegheny with a degree in English and with career records for rushing yards (3,272) and touchdowns (54), and was a multiple-time All-American. Fast, too. His 21.41 for the 200 is still an Allegheny record.
As the running back coach at Florida under head coach Urban Meyer in 2006, he helped the Gators go 13-1 and win the national title. The starting left offensive tackle that season? Current Penn State offensive line coach Phil Trautwein.
Then, with Meyer again at Ohio State in 2014, Drayton coached the Buckeye running backs as Ohio State went 14-1 and won the national championship. That’s 3 x 1, if you’re counting.
Drayton is a Running Back Whisperer. In Stan’s stable have been names like Brian Westbrook, Carlos Hyde, Ezekiel Elliott, Bijan Robinson, Matt Forte, Jerious Norwood and Jordan Howard.
So, he knows what being — and coaching — the best looks like. Deep down. Lived it on and off the field, north and south, NCAC and SEC and Big Ten, experiencing what it takes to finish a season No. 1 in the country.
And so…that was my No. 1 question for Drayton in his first media availability since his onboarding presser.
THAT NO. 1 FEELING
Nine minutes into a 13-minute interview, I asked Drayton — who was hired a bit more than two months ago to succeed Ja’Juan Seider, who arrived in Happy Valley in 2018 and left seven seasons and four full-time offensive coordinators later for Notre Dame, as the second-most tenured assistant on Franklin’s staff— The Question.
I spent the entire post-practice media session standing no more than two feet from Drayton. He’s authentic, engaged in conversation rather than rote coachspeak. He looks you right in the eye when he answers. Never flinches, never wanders.
I wondered, to him, about his No. 1 history. “So, you had a national title at Allegheny,” I stated.
“I did,” Drayton interjected.
“And you had two with Urban,” I stated.
“That’s right,” Drayton confirmed.
“So, you know what it looks like,” I re-affirmed.
“That’s right,” Drayton said.
“Does this,” I finally had a question, spreading my arms to signal all of Holuba, all of Penn State football, over 100 players and nearly as many staffers, “look like that?” That being, of course, a No. 1 team.
Drayton did not hesitate a bit. He had been at Penn State only since Valentine’s Day, a total of 60 days. For only 10 official practices, all with returning 1,000-yard rushers Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen.
Drayton, at age 54, has over three decades of coaching experience, in college and in the NFL. And he has just come off a three-year, 9-25 grind of head coaching stint at Temple. In addition to the Owls, Gators and Buckeyes, he’s coached at Texas, Syracuse, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Bowling Green, Villanova, Penn, Eastern and his alma mater, as well as at NFC Central stops Green Bay and Chicago.
Stan knows.
“It looks like that,” he said. “It feels like that.
“And you know, it starts with a team that is player-led. And that’s the thing I am starting to see here at Penn State. I know for one thing, they are a family. They really enjoy each other. That’s half the battle there, right?
“With that,” Drayton added, “comes them holding each other accountable to the standard that we have here at Penn State. To me, that is a championship caliber football.”
That meaning Penn State. Today. Now. For 2025.
Stan knows.
“We have the talent,” he continued. “It’s not a talent issue. But when players take over and hold that standard, that’s when you start winning championships. And I definitely think we are trending in that direction.”
THE OTHER NEW GUY KNOW(LES) IT TOO
Drayton’s pronouncement had a familiar ring to it. I knew I had heard it recently. Then I thought back to the initial press conference rolling out Franklin’s other big-name off-season hire, defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.
Knowles, who guided Ohio State’s defense on its run to the Buckeyes’ College Football Playoff national title, thinks the Nittany Lions are close, too.
“So close, so close, right?” Knowles said at his introductory press conference the first week of February. “I think I can help, I think I can be of service.
“I have one aspiration,” added Knowles, 59. “I’m at that point in my career where you focus solely on the job at hand, and my aspiration is to help Penn State win the national championship and be the No. 1 defense in the country — and that’s really all I’m focused on. That’s not just talk. That’s the truth. I don’t have any aspirations beyond that.”
