Penn State Chooses Manny Diaz to fill Defensive Coordinator Vacancy

Story posted December 11, 2021 in CommRadio, Sports by Zech Lambert

The search for Penn State’s new defensive coordinator is officially over after James Franklin landed one of the biggest names on the market.

The program announced Saturday that Manny Diaz, the former head coach at the University of Miami, will be the new leader of the Nittany Lion defense.

The opening for Penn State came after long-time defensive coordinator left for the head coaching gig at Virginia Tech.

As for Diaz, he has a plethora of experience under his belt, though, he never stayed at one stop for a particularly lengthy amount of time.

Diaz landed his first defensive coordinator gig in 2006 with Middle Tennessee State where he stayed until moving to Mississippi State in 2010 for one season as the defensive coordinator.

From there, he was Texas’ defensive coordinator from 2011-2013 before going to Louisiana Tech for a year and then back to Mississippi State for a year.

Diaz then wound up in Miami for his sixth defensive coordinator position before being promoted to head coach in 2019.


Zech Lambert is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email zbl5146@psu.edu.

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Zech Lambert

Senior / Broadcast journalism

Zech is a senior from Northampton, Pennsylvania. He is a football insider for CommRadio. He is also a co-host on the weekly talk show Ducks on the Pond, while also doing play-by-play for CommRadio and B1G+. On top of that, Zech is a sports editor at the Daily Collegian. Over the summer, he interned with the Charlottesville Tom Sox of the Valley Baseball League doing play-by-play, among other media roles. To contact him, email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). You can also tweet him @Zech_Lambert with any random thoughts or just to have some sports banter.