NORFOLK, Va. — On Monday, Ricky Rahne was driving to New York to continue recruiting for Penn State. As he rode in the rental car to hit up another high school wearing blue and white gear, his phone rang.
Old Dominion athletic director Wood Selig was on the other end, ready to offer Penn State’s offensive coordinator the Monarchs’ head coaching job. Old Dominion’s coaching search started and ended in just one week. The school brought in finalists Thursday through Sunday, showing them the facilities late at night in hopes of keeping candidates as close to the vest as possible.
Rahne knew about the facilities already from Penn State’s previous satellite camp stops at ODU, though the Monarchs’ renovated stadium just opened last August. Rahne saw that last week as the search unfolded. He researched Old Dominion, its decision-makers and its commitment to the football program, which restarted play in 2009 after a long hiatus.
He also took solace in having his own rental car while he was out on the road recruiting for Penn State. It certainly eliminated what could’ve been some potential awkwardness on Monday when Selig called and Rahne accepted the Old Dominion job on the spot. Somewhere en route to New York, he hit the brakes.
“We were like the ’86 Mets and you know everybody had their own car,” Rahne said Wednesday to a handful of reporters after being introduced at Old Dominion. “It was very strange. I was literally driving behind another (Penn State assistant), and I had to call him like, ‘I’m not gonna make it,’ and he was like, ‘Why?’ I was like, ‘Uh, I can’t tell you,’ and he’s like, ‘I got it.’ So I turned around.”
Rahne says he does some of his best thinking out on the open road. In a business that doesn’t allow for a lot of time to reflect, he’s been able to do some of that during the past year. Rahne said several times during his six seasons at Penn State that he didn’t want to be a head football coach, but he started to change his mind when on the road last summer during a family vacation.
He’s done a lot of thinking since then, too.
As he rode shotgun from State College to Norfolk on Tuesday with his two sons in the backseat, Rahne was already busy preparing for his first head coaching job. There’s a staff to put together, an early signing period to figure out and still plenty of phone calls to Penn State coach James Franklin. Franklin’s recommendation to Selig helped sell the Monarchs on Rahne.
“We talked to Coach Franklin a number of times. He couldn’t have been more accessible and he couldn’t have been more supportive of Coach Rahne,” Selig said.
That relationship between Franklin and Rahne won’t end anytime soon. In fact, Rahne’s sons even FaceTimed with Franklin’s daughters for two hours on Tuesday during the car ride to Norfolk, continuing a close relationship for the families whose kids have grown up together. Spending the past nine years together in the coaching profession is like an eternity.
“(Franklin) was telling us how ready (Rahne) was, how supportive he would be. He would have the (Old Dominion and Penn State) coaching staffs do professional development together,” Selig said. “They would do camps together. If anything, we might become a Penn State South with the relationship that he intends to maintain with Coach Rahne. That gave us some comfort, too, because personally, I think James Franklin is one of the best in the business and Coach Rahne spent a lot of years with James Franklin.”
Rahne agreed to a five-year contract, and though the deal has yet to be finalized in terms of performance incentives and the contract buyout, Rahne’s guaranteed money is $750,000 annually, Selig said.
As with any coaching change, there are many loose ends to tie up. The Athleticwas on hand at the introductory news conference Wednesday. Afterward, Rahne met with a handful of reporters — a much smaller contingent than those who covered him for the past six seasons — and addressed his time at Penn State. Below is how Rahne responded to questions regarding the Nittany Lions.
I’m curious when you changed your mind about wanting to be a head coach because you said several times over the years that you saw what James has to do as a head coach and didn’t necessarily want to do that?
It’s funny. … I started to change a little bit over the summer and at the end of last year. And part of it was just because I started to reflect on all the lessons I learned from Coach Franklin, all the lessons I learned from Bill Snyder. And I thought to myself, you know, I would be pretty good at this job. And so that’s where it started to change. I also, quite frankly, was looking for a new challenge. I was looking for something that I thought would challenge me in some different areas. And I just feel, even since I’ve started this process of even having this opportunity, I felt reinvigorated and it’s been energizing on a number of different fronts.
Was there something that kind of sparked that that change?
I think you know that I do that baseball tour with my family. … Every summer, my boys (and) my wife and we go and visit four or five Major League baseball stadiums every year. So last year we drove. We were in Toronto and then we went to Detroit, Cincinnati and Cleveland. So that was a lot of driving. Nothing says big-time football coach like driving a Toyota Sienna around the country. But those drives, they’ve got their headphones on, my wife’s sleeping or listening to her book or reading or whatever. Those drives gave me a lot of time to reflect and think. And it was really during that that time when I started to kind of formulate some things in my head.
How and when did you tell the Penn State quarterbacks in particular that you were leaving? Because you pride yourself on the relationships, but when guys leave, there always can be some challenges.
Well, it was it was a difficult situation, quite frankly. I was lucky enough that Sean (Clifford) was in the building when I got back (on Monday). So I had him come see me. Unfortunately, it kind of got out a little bit before. I didn’t want it to be like that. It kind of got out. So he called me and he asked me for the truth and is this real. And I said, “I’m in the process of it, yeah.” And so I’m never gonna lie to him. I never have and I never will. I love those guys.
And then I talked to Will (Levis) on the phone, and then fortunately, in a very weird situation, we had a younger guy practice that day, so I actually went out to practice and spoke with the two young guys (Ta’Quan Roberson and Michael Johnson Jr.) It was a different deal, but you’re right. I do pride myself on relationships and they were nothing but supportive to me and my family, which was awesome. I just had one of the other ones write to me and tell me that I’m supposed to send him my kids’ hockey schedule, because he wants to go to their games. So it’s a special relationship with those guys.
(Audrey Snyder / The Athletic)
What did you learn about yourself as an offensive coordinator the last two years? When they mentioned Penn State’s numbers here during the news conference, everybody cheered. And then we’ve talked several times the last two seasons about it and how the Penn State fan base reacts to certain things.
I’ve learned that you need to be happy with — I need to be happy and satisfied with — how I call it and not do it for other people. Because you can get caught up in that. If you get caught up in social media, you start doing things for other people. You know this: We would have been under center with two backs in there. If I try to do what everybody else wants, we’re going to need three footballs, right? Because they want me to throw it deep, hand the ball off to the fullback and make sure to throw a nice ball-control pass all in the same place. So, that obviously doesn’t work. So, I need to make sure that I call it the way I want to call it and what’s going to be best for us to win games and that’s ultimately the thing. We want to win games. It’s got to be complementary football — offense, defense and special teams.
Do you feel like maybe Penn State fans misunderstood you in a sense with this offense and the results, or is it always that vocal minority that kind of is loudest?
I do think it is a little bit of the vocal minority because I’ve got a bunch of different, I’ve had numerous people reach out to me and tell me how much they appreciate everything I did there. So it’s a vocal minority — it’s always going to be, right? That’s why Twitter exists. I mean, quite frankly, that’s its focal point, the vocal minority. So that’s why, you know, I’ve quite frankly tried to ignore it. I probably wouldn’t have Twitter if it wasn’t for recruiting because I’d much rather have a personal interaction with somebody.
For me, it’s all about, you know, do I feel happy with how we did — and I do. I look back on my time at Penn State, and I feel pretty darn good. There’s some incredible things that happened there, and so when I look back, those are going to be a happy memory of six years for me.
How would you assess Penn State’s offense this season? What would be kind of your end note on the offense there?
I think that we did some great things. We were young at a number of different spots. And the funny part about it is going into the season and, you know this, if people would’ve said we’d have 10 wins in the regular season, there’s not a person in that fan base who wouldn’t have taken that. Now, the people involved, we wanted more than that and we put ourselves in a position where we should have more than that. I talk about red zone touchdowns, and in the Minnesota game we didn’t score touchdowns in the red zone. We were excellent at that all year, but that game we weren’t and it ended up costing us.
You look back at things like that, always wish that, hey, should I have called this or called that, but in the end of ends, I’m going to look back on these last few years and this season in particular in 10 years and think I coached some great kids who were unbelievable people, and I was able to coach with great men. That coaching staff is full of great men that will be friends for the rest of my life.
How did James take the conversation when you told him you were leaving because I know he said so many times, he’s going to be happy and supportive of his assistants when they move on?
He was integral in helping me land this job and make sure that Old Dominion knew that I can handle this and that I can be successful. I owe an incredible amount to him. He was incredibly supportive. He was the exact man that he says he was going to be and he has been the whole time. That’s probably the best thing you can ever say about somebody. He was exactly how he says he was going to be and he followed through.
Some coaches want to stay and maybe coach a bowl game. Was that a conversation you had previously with James about whether you would stay on? How did all that get decided?
Well, I’ve had a lot of experience with him so I kind of know where he stands. I also know that he knows that my loyalties lie at Old Dominion. … I always want to see Penn State be successful and I hope they win that bowl game by 100 points, but quite frankly, we both knew that I needed to be here and start on the process. We talked about all the time going 1-0 every day, and it’s going to be hard to go 1-0 every day if you’re trying to win two games at once. So, you know, I needed to be here, and we both knew that was the right thing.
Would you like to take this Old Dominion team back to Penn State down the road to play them?
How much are they going to pay us? (Laughs) … Hey, listen, we’ll go and I want to play those types of games. … That would be hard, I’m not going to lie. That would be hard for Coach Franklin and I think it would be hard for me. I know it’d be hard for my kids and I know it’d be hard for his kids. First thing when his children found out what was going on, the first thing they asked was, “Do we have to play them? Because I don’t want to.” So, I think that would be tough, but it’d be something that I obviously would welcome. You play in front of 107,000 people, I don’t care if they’re cheering for or against you, that’s an experience you will never forget.
(Top photo: Matthew O’Haren / USA Today)
Old Dominion athletic director Wood Selig was on the other end, ready to offer Penn State’s offensive coordinator the Monarchs’ head coaching job. Old Dominion’s coaching search started and ended in just one week. The school brought in finalists Thursday through Sunday, showing them the facilities late at night in hopes of keeping candidates as close to the vest as possible.
Rahne knew about the facilities already from Penn State’s previous satellite camp stops at ODU, though the Monarchs’ renovated stadium just opened last August. Rahne saw that last week as the search unfolded. He researched Old Dominion, its decision-makers and its commitment to the football program, which restarted play in 2009 after a long hiatus.
He also took solace in having his own rental car while he was out on the road recruiting for Penn State. It certainly eliminated what could’ve been some potential awkwardness on Monday when Selig called and Rahne accepted the Old Dominion job on the spot. Somewhere en route to New York, he hit the brakes.
“We were like the ’86 Mets and you know everybody had their own car,” Rahne said Wednesday to a handful of reporters after being introduced at Old Dominion. “It was very strange. I was literally driving behind another (Penn State assistant), and I had to call him like, ‘I’m not gonna make it,’ and he was like, ‘Why?’ I was like, ‘Uh, I can’t tell you,’ and he’s like, ‘I got it.’ So I turned around.”
Rahne says he does some of his best thinking out on the open road. In a business that doesn’t allow for a lot of time to reflect, he’s been able to do some of that during the past year. Rahne said several times during his six seasons at Penn State that he didn’t want to be a head football coach, but he started to change his mind when on the road last summer during a family vacation.
He’s done a lot of thinking since then, too.
As he rode shotgun from State College to Norfolk on Tuesday with his two sons in the backseat, Rahne was already busy preparing for his first head coaching job. There’s a staff to put together, an early signing period to figure out and still plenty of phone calls to Penn State coach James Franklin. Franklin’s recommendation to Selig helped sell the Monarchs on Rahne.
“We talked to Coach Franklin a number of times. He couldn’t have been more accessible and he couldn’t have been more supportive of Coach Rahne,” Selig said.
That relationship between Franklin and Rahne won’t end anytime soon. In fact, Rahne’s sons even FaceTimed with Franklin’s daughters for two hours on Tuesday during the car ride to Norfolk, continuing a close relationship for the families whose kids have grown up together. Spending the past nine years together in the coaching profession is like an eternity.
“(Franklin) was telling us how ready (Rahne) was, how supportive he would be. He would have the (Old Dominion and Penn State) coaching staffs do professional development together,” Selig said. “They would do camps together. If anything, we might become a Penn State South with the relationship that he intends to maintain with Coach Rahne. That gave us some comfort, too, because personally, I think James Franklin is one of the best in the business and Coach Rahne spent a lot of years with James Franklin.”
Rahne agreed to a five-year contract, and though the deal has yet to be finalized in terms of performance incentives and the contract buyout, Rahne’s guaranteed money is $750,000 annually, Selig said.
As with any coaching change, there are many loose ends to tie up. The Athleticwas on hand at the introductory news conference Wednesday. Afterward, Rahne met with a handful of reporters — a much smaller contingent than those who covered him for the past six seasons — and addressed his time at Penn State. Below is how Rahne responded to questions regarding the Nittany Lions.
I’m curious when you changed your mind about wanting to be a head coach because you said several times over the years that you saw what James has to do as a head coach and didn’t necessarily want to do that?
It’s funny. … I started to change a little bit over the summer and at the end of last year. And part of it was just because I started to reflect on all the lessons I learned from Coach Franklin, all the lessons I learned from Bill Snyder. And I thought to myself, you know, I would be pretty good at this job. And so that’s where it started to change. I also, quite frankly, was looking for a new challenge. I was looking for something that I thought would challenge me in some different areas. And I just feel, even since I’ve started this process of even having this opportunity, I felt reinvigorated and it’s been energizing on a number of different fronts.
Was there something that kind of sparked that that change?
I think you know that I do that baseball tour with my family. … Every summer, my boys (and) my wife and we go and visit four or five Major League baseball stadiums every year. So last year we drove. We were in Toronto and then we went to Detroit, Cincinnati and Cleveland. So that was a lot of driving. Nothing says big-time football coach like driving a Toyota Sienna around the country. But those drives, they’ve got their headphones on, my wife’s sleeping or listening to her book or reading or whatever. Those drives gave me a lot of time to reflect and think. And it was really during that that time when I started to kind of formulate some things in my head.
How and when did you tell the Penn State quarterbacks in particular that you were leaving? Because you pride yourself on the relationships, but when guys leave, there always can be some challenges.
Well, it was it was a difficult situation, quite frankly. I was lucky enough that Sean (Clifford) was in the building when I got back (on Monday). So I had him come see me. Unfortunately, it kind of got out a little bit before. I didn’t want it to be like that. It kind of got out. So he called me and he asked me for the truth and is this real. And I said, “I’m in the process of it, yeah.” And so I’m never gonna lie to him. I never have and I never will. I love those guys.
And then I talked to Will (Levis) on the phone, and then fortunately, in a very weird situation, we had a younger guy practice that day, so I actually went out to practice and spoke with the two young guys (Ta’Quan Roberson and Michael Johnson Jr.) It was a different deal, but you’re right. I do pride myself on relationships and they were nothing but supportive to me and my family, which was awesome. I just had one of the other ones write to me and tell me that I’m supposed to send him my kids’ hockey schedule, because he wants to go to their games. So it’s a special relationship with those guys.
(Audrey Snyder / The Athletic)
What did you learn about yourself as an offensive coordinator the last two years? When they mentioned Penn State’s numbers here during the news conference, everybody cheered. And then we’ve talked several times the last two seasons about it and how the Penn State fan base reacts to certain things.
I’ve learned that you need to be happy with — I need to be happy and satisfied with — how I call it and not do it for other people. Because you can get caught up in that. If you get caught up in social media, you start doing things for other people. You know this: We would have been under center with two backs in there. If I try to do what everybody else wants, we’re going to need three footballs, right? Because they want me to throw it deep, hand the ball off to the fullback and make sure to throw a nice ball-control pass all in the same place. So, that obviously doesn’t work. So, I need to make sure that I call it the way I want to call it and what’s going to be best for us to win games and that’s ultimately the thing. We want to win games. It’s got to be complementary football — offense, defense and special teams.
Do you feel like maybe Penn State fans misunderstood you in a sense with this offense and the results, or is it always that vocal minority that kind of is loudest?
I do think it is a little bit of the vocal minority because I’ve got a bunch of different, I’ve had numerous people reach out to me and tell me how much they appreciate everything I did there. So it’s a vocal minority — it’s always going to be, right? That’s why Twitter exists. I mean, quite frankly, that’s its focal point, the vocal minority. So that’s why, you know, I’ve quite frankly tried to ignore it. I probably wouldn’t have Twitter if it wasn’t for recruiting because I’d much rather have a personal interaction with somebody.
For me, it’s all about, you know, do I feel happy with how we did — and I do. I look back on my time at Penn State, and I feel pretty darn good. There’s some incredible things that happened there, and so when I look back, those are going to be a happy memory of six years for me.
How would you assess Penn State’s offense this season? What would be kind of your end note on the offense there?
I think that we did some great things. We were young at a number of different spots. And the funny part about it is going into the season and, you know this, if people would’ve said we’d have 10 wins in the regular season, there’s not a person in that fan base who wouldn’t have taken that. Now, the people involved, we wanted more than that and we put ourselves in a position where we should have more than that. I talk about red zone touchdowns, and in the Minnesota game we didn’t score touchdowns in the red zone. We were excellent at that all year, but that game we weren’t and it ended up costing us.
You look back at things like that, always wish that, hey, should I have called this or called that, but in the end of ends, I’m going to look back on these last few years and this season in particular in 10 years and think I coached some great kids who were unbelievable people, and I was able to coach with great men. That coaching staff is full of great men that will be friends for the rest of my life.
How did James take the conversation when you told him you were leaving because I know he said so many times, he’s going to be happy and supportive of his assistants when they move on?
He was integral in helping me land this job and make sure that Old Dominion knew that I can handle this and that I can be successful. I owe an incredible amount to him. He was incredibly supportive. He was the exact man that he says he was going to be and he has been the whole time. That’s probably the best thing you can ever say about somebody. He was exactly how he says he was going to be and he followed through.
Some coaches want to stay and maybe coach a bowl game. Was that a conversation you had previously with James about whether you would stay on? How did all that get decided?
Well, I’ve had a lot of experience with him so I kind of know where he stands. I also know that he knows that my loyalties lie at Old Dominion. … I always want to see Penn State be successful and I hope they win that bowl game by 100 points, but quite frankly, we both knew that I needed to be here and start on the process. We talked about all the time going 1-0 every day, and it’s going to be hard to go 1-0 every day if you’re trying to win two games at once. So, you know, I needed to be here, and we both knew that was the right thing.
Would you like to take this Old Dominion team back to Penn State down the road to play them?
How much are they going to pay us? (Laughs) … Hey, listen, we’ll go and I want to play those types of games. … That would be hard, I’m not going to lie. That would be hard for Coach Franklin and I think it would be hard for me. I know it’d be hard for my kids and I know it’d be hard for his kids. First thing when his children found out what was going on, the first thing they asked was, “Do we have to play them? Because I don’t want to.” So, I think that would be tough, but it’d be something that I obviously would welcome. You play in front of 107,000 people, I don’t care if they’re cheering for or against you, that’s an experience you will never forget.
(Top photo: Matthew O’Haren / USA Today)
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