According to a report from Yahoo Sports, Penn State has its replacement for Tim Banks.
It’s Anthony Poindexter, Purdue’s co-defensive coordinator and a College Football Hall of Fame safety from his playing days at the University of Virginia in the late 1990s.
Sources: Purdue co-defensive coordinator Anthony Poindexter is expected to leave for the open defensive assistant position at Penn State.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 22, 2021
Anthony Poindexter
Penn State hasn’t announced the move, but it makes a ton of sense.
The last four seasons, Poindexter has coached safeties and served as co-defensive coordinator for the Boilermakers. He has previous experience as a full-time defensive coordinator as well, serving in that role on Bob Diaco’s staff at Connecticut from 2014-16.
His role on the Penn State staff has not been announced yet, let alone defined. But a safeties coach with experiences as a decision-maker running a defense? Sounds like Banks’ qualifications, to the letter, when Penn State hired him to fill Bob Shoop’s spot on the defense in 2016.
Is Poindexter an effective coach? Here are some of the more recent national rankings on his defenses in areas where he probably has an impact, and you can be the judge on his success so far:
|
Year |
Total Defense rank |
Pass Efficiency Defense rank |
| Purdue | ||
|
2020 |
56 |
93 |
|
2019 |
96 |
94 |
|
2018 |
113 |
83 |
|
2017 |
52 |
65 |
| Connecticut | ||
|
2016 |
65 |
98 |
|
2015 |
33 |
24 |
|
2014 |
49 |
59 |
Time usually tells when it comes to who is an effective coach and who isn’t. After all, Shoop was a pretty great defensive coordinator for Penn State, and a pretty average one at his other stops since. Why? The talent he had to work with certainly is a big reason why. There’s no doubt Poindexter will have more talent to work with at Penn State than he had at Purdue and UConn, and given what he had to work with in those two programs, his defenses and secondaries mixed in some really nice statistical seasons anyway.
What should make Poindexter intriguing to Penn State fans is what he can be in the recruiting battles.
He wasn’t a good player at Virginia, he was legendary. And he has recruited the DC/Maryland/Virginia well over the years, as you’d expect a coach with his playing credentials would. He was instrumental in getting the top-rated safety in the nation, Quin Blanding, to commit to Virginia in 2014, and if Penn State has him adding to their recruiting efforts in the DMV — that’s an assumption at this point, of course, but hardly a stretch — it could signal an added push in that especially fertile talent pool is coming.
Donnie Collins has been a member of The Times-Tribune sports staff for nearly 20 years and has been the Penn State football beat writer for Times-Shamrock Newspapers since 2004. The Penn State Football Blog covers Nittany Lions, Big Ten and big-time college football news from Beaver Stadium to the practice field, the bowl game to National Letter of Intent Signing Day. Contact: dcollins@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9100 x5368; @DonnieCollinsTT
