Matt Campbell is working to keep two Penn State alumni — Dan Connor and Deion Barnes — on staff, and it appears he’s working on bringing in another to oversee the defense as a whole. Matt Zenitz of 247Sports reports that USC’s D’Anton Lynn is *the* target for Penn State’s incumbent defensive coordinator job.

A Penn State player from 2008-2011, Lynn was an NFL assistant from 2014-2022, working his way up from being a seasonal intern with the New York Jets to the safeties coach for the Ravens. He made the move to the college game in 2023, serving as the defensive coordinator at UCLA for one season and at USC for the past two. In both cases, he took over horrendous units and improved them mightily right away. Below is where the Bruins and Trojans defenses ranked in SP+ before Lynn’s arrival and then during his tenure.

Before D’Anton Lynn: UCLA (2022) — 83rd
During D’Anton Lynn: UCLA (2023 — 17th

Before D’Anton Lynn:USC (2023) — 105th
During D’Anton Lynn: USC (2024) — 48th
During D’Anton Lynn: USC (2025) — 35th

At Penn State, he wouldn’t be taking over a dreadful unit — the Nittany Lions, even in a down defensive season, finished 33rd in SP+. But there’s still the element of a lot of transition with NFL departures and potential transfer portal movement that bringing in someone like Lynn who gets improved results right away would be an awesome fit.

So the guy is good. Really good. And it’d be quite the hire for Matt Campbell to get him just 12 months after the last guy got turned down.

We’ll see where this goes. It’s a good sign to get a tweet like that from Zenitz, but until there’s a “are finalizing a deal” tweet, this one remains up in the air.