How Penn State DC D’Anton Lynn has evolved — and can help the defense do the same
D’Anton Lynn pointed to the windows facing the Penn State practice fields — the fields that he once practiced on as a player.
“It didn’t really hit me until you really started doing stuff with the players on the field,” Lynn told the Centre Daily Times while sitting in his office in the Lasch Building. “And it’s just like, wow. It really feels like I was just out there wearing a Penn State helmet going through practice, and now you’re on the opposite end of it, and now you’re looking at these guys, and they’re going through the same thing you went through.
“It kind of puts things in perspective, and it just makes you just really appreciate your time here more, appreciate the relationships here more. It’s cool to see the people that are still here.”
The former Nittany Lion defensive back spent plenty of time out on those fields, as he said, earning his way into playing time in the secondary from 2008-2011 before a short-lived NFL career.
When that ended over a decade ago, it gave way to his new career as a coach. And after 15 years away, he returned to the program to be its defensive coordinator and help it evolve.
Why the time was right to return to Penn State
There were other instances when his alma mater and then-head coach James Franklin tried to hire him to run the defense, but this time was different. There was something about head coach Matt Campbell that signaled to Lynn that this was the right time to return.
“Coach Campbell, after I got off the phone with him, the first phone call we had, I looked at my wife,” Lynn said. “And my wife just knew that this time was going to be a little bit different. He just really reminded me of why I came to Penn State as a recruit out of high school. And I didn’t know anything about him. I’d heard a lot of good things about him, have a lot of respect for him from afar, but when we got off the phone, there was just something in my gut that was like, I don’t know how it’s gonna happen, but somehow, some way, I’m gonna make this work.”
Lynn is able to call Happy Valley home again thanks to Campbell’s pursuit, but the place he came back to was not the same as the one he left. Downtown is different, with high-rises popping up and replacing old-school favorites that he knew and loved. Even the football building is completely different.
So much so that Lynn doesn’t associate it with the one he spent time in as a player. Because back when he played, things were not close to how they are now.
“When I’m in this building, it doesn’t feel like I’m in the facility that I was in [as a player],” Lynn said. “The nutrition center is unreal. We ate at Pollock Commons. The only thing that’s really the same is going to be that main hallway with the All-Americans. That is the only thing that looks the same. Other than that, the building looks completely different.”
‘Forever evolving’
But it’s not just the place that isn’t the same — Lynn is different, too. He spent his time away building an impressive coaching resume that saw him quickly rise from an NFL intern to UCLA’s defensive coordinator in less than 10 years. That kind of meteoric rise is especially impressive in an industry littered with qualified candidates.
In fact, that’s part of what made his arrival to UCLA so unique. He was hired as DC after spending two years as the safeties coach with the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL, getting the job over several candidates with the Bruins’ defensive staff who interviewed for the position. That’s not an easy situation to walk into.
“Having to walk into a room and there’s 15 guys in the room,” Lynn said. “I’m the only new guy. These guys don’t really want me in here. I had to just put that aside. I had a job that had to get done. It didn’t start off like we were best buds. But by the end of the year, it was one of the closest staffs I was on.”
Penn State defensive line coach Ikaika Malloe was on that staff. He saw Lynn build those relationships up and make the staff feel involved — and then got to fill his shoes when the defensive coordinator left for USC in 2024. That perspective allowed him to appreciate what Lynn did even more, and allowed him to grow in his own right as a coach.
“He really opened my mind, because what I thought I knew up front [on defense], I realized how much he could do the same thing in the back end by what he was doing,” Malloe told the CDT. “That guy is forever evolving. When we get together again at Penn State, a lot of the stuff that I learned from him has already changed to something different.
“Learning that from him, and then knowing the person he is, I’m really excited to see where he takes this next venture in terms of coordinating a spot from what he did at UCLA, what he extended to at USC, and then what he’s going to eventually become at Penn State.”
And now Lynn will have to apply what he’s learned in those three short years as a defensive coordinator at UCLA and USC. He’s in charge of a defense that features a slew of new faces trying to learn a new scheme.
Last year’s group never quite got there, and the national championship expectations they faced were never a reality with Jim Knowles installing a complex scheme that couldn’t produce quickly enough on the field.
Lynn, whose defense isn’t simple, will try to make the transition more seamless.
“We try and teach in concepts,” Lynn said. “I feel like, all right, instead of learning plays, learn these concepts. And let’s say you’re playing the nickel position — if you understand these, let’s say it’s just spring ball, these four to five concepts that we’re going to teach you in spring ball. Without even knowing it, if we install any of these 25 plays right here, you’re going to know what to do. But it’s getting them to think about it from that perspective, instead of memorizing plays.”
That will be a must. His group will likely be the better side of the ball this year for a program that is entering a new era with Campbell in charge. And while expectations should be tempered with all the staff and roster turnover Penn State has undergone, it’s hard not to look at the schedule and see a reasonable path to 10 wins.
And if they get there, Lynn will have done what his predecessor couldn’t — have the unit outplaying the sum of its parts.
