How, and why, Manny Diaz decided to be the new defensive coordinator at Penn State

Manny Diaz said on Dec. 6 that he was “disappointed” in the way his tenure at Miami ended. By Dec. 11, he was the new defensive coordinator at Penn State.

Welcome to the wild world of college football and specifically its coaching carousel. What used to take months now takes a matter of days. In some cases, even only hours.

Diaz was hired to replace Brent Pry, who left Penn State after eight seasons to become the head coach at Virginia Tech. Franklin moved as quickly as he could to name a replacement. After 12 days, the deal was done and the announcement was made.

“This past month has been a hell of a year,” Diaz quipped during his introductory Penn State news conference on Friday.

He was joking. He’s also right.

The early signing period had moved coaching searches into overdrive. Diaz said when Franklin first reached out early last week, his initial thought was that sure, maybe there could be a match by January. He soon realized, however, that the process would play out much quicker than that.

“I started to realize, with the all-powerful Signing Day, which has become sort of the Overlord over all of college football, looming, that if this was going to happen, it was going to happen pretty quick,” Diaz said.

“Really, by Thursday [of last week], I think we were just about a yes. And, I think Friday morning, Friday, midday is when I think we finally agreed on all the tiny details and I was here walking out of the State College airport Friday night at 11 p.m. and watching a football practice the next day. That was a whirlwind.”

Why Penn State for Diaz?

Diaz has a style of defense he has implemented for a long time. He wants his unit to be aggressive and fast and focused on turnovers and tackles for loss. He knew that James Franklin wanted that at Penn State, too, because of his connection with former Lions defensive coordinator Bob Shoop.

“Philosophically, Bob and I were very closely aligned in the way that we’d like to be aggressive, attack, pressure defenses, you know, different looks,” Diaz said. “Certainly Brent took over, and like what anybody would do, you sort of put your own advancements and developments on a scheme.

“What you can see is that, in James’ time of being head coach, his defensive philosophy, backed by the people who have worked with him, has been to be very aggressive and very multiple. I think that’s why when we spoke about what he envisioned going forward, I think that’s why it made sense.”

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With that said, Diaz still had a big career decision to make. He was unceremoniously let go at Miami when the Hurricanes lured Mario Cristobal to Coral Gables. No one could have blamed the 47-year-old if he took a year away from the sport. The same goes for if he sought another head coaching opportunity. The question, then, is why Penn State as its defensive coordinator?

The longer answer is below. The short one is that he clearly respects Penn State’s rich defensive history. That’s especially true of its ‘LBU’ reputation, and he wanted to be part of it.

“I didn’t know where I was gonna go,” Diaz said. “I wanted to kind of be organic and see what the best opportunity was. And, make sure it was a place where I could make sure I was around great people, like-minded people, that were about to right things, and that we could win.

“And, if it was going to be at the defense coordinator level, that we had a chance to play great defense. I think Penn State ticked all those boxes.”

The more Diaz talked, the more it became obvious that this was the right place for him. The same goes for Penn State. It has landed a well-respected play caller with a similar style to help its defense take the next step.

“What I’m really excited about is coaching defensive football at Penn State University,” Diaz said.

“That’s fun to say out loud,”