Penn State Defensive Coordinator Tom Allen Named Broyles Award Nominee

Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen is up for a national award. On Tuesday, Allen was named one of 65 nominees for the Broyles Award, which annually recognizes the nation’s top assistant coach. 

Allen replaced Manny Diaz, now the head coach at Duke, this past offseason. In Allen’s first year with the Nittany Lions, his unit ranks No. 4 nationally with 273.5 yards allowed per game and No. 7 nationally with 14.6 points allowed per game. Penn State also leads the Big Ten with 79 tackles for loss.

It took some adjustments, like moving from the field to the press box and handing in-helmet communication duties off to analyst Dan Connor. But Allen now appears settled in his first assistant coaching job in eight years after spending the past seven seasons as Indiana’s head coach.

“I think he’s done a really good job of coming in here and adapting,” Franklin said last Wednesday. “We got one of the top defenses in the country. I think our defense is our highest-rated unit, and no one’s talking about it. I think he’s done a really good job of being a head coach for a long time and getting back into the defensive coordinator role.”

Notably left off the shortlist for the Broyles Award was offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, who has turned one of the country’s least explosive teams last season into one of the most explosive in 2024. The Nittany Lions currently rank No. 6 nationally with 6.9 yards per play, a testament to the job Kotelnicki has done in his first year with the program.