O'Brien rounding out coaching staff

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - New Penn State head coach Bill O'Brien increased his coaching staff to three, with Ron Vanderlinden joining Larry Johnson as holdovers from the previous administration of Joe Paterno and Tom Bradley.

But the fate of Bradley and quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno, son of the former head coach, was not known Sunday after they met with O'Brien.

O'Brien finished up meetings with the assistant coaches Sunday before introducing himself to the members of his new team and then flying back to New England to resume his duties as the Patriots' offensive coordinator.

He told ESPN.com that he hopes to have at least seven assistant coaches in place by Wednesday to be ready for the resumption of recruiting on Friday.

O'Brien announced the appointment of Johnson, a 16-year veteran of the staff, as defensive line coach at his news conference Saturday. Then Sunday, players confirmed the retention of Vanderlinden, the linebackers coach who just completed his 11th season with the Nittany Lions.

O'Brien also hired Charles London, who spent 2010 as a pro scout for the Eagles before joining the Tennessee Titans staff this year, as running backs coach, a move first reported by the Tennessean newspaper. The two coached together on the staff at Duke in 2005 and 2006.

As for Jay Paterno, he was the subject of ESPN SportsCenter's Sunday Conversation, and he told interviewer Tom Rinaldi he thought about the possibility that the TicketCity Bowl game on Jan. 2 might be the last time he coached for Penn State.

He said he thought about his father and his late uncle - college coach and longtime Penn State broadcaster George Paterno.

"One of the things that hit me as I was walking off the field, you don't know if you're going to coach another game or not," Jay Paterno said. "As I walked off, I was thinking about my dad and my uncle George, and it did start to get to me a little bit."

Paterno reiterated an earlier thought that, should he no longer be employed at Penn State, he would speak to his wife to see if he would continue in coaching or try another profession.

Paterno said his father is doing well in his recovery from lung cancer because he has a "fighting spirit" and "he's fighting like crazy."

"He's very anxious to get out there soon and start to tell his side of the story and start to express . . . get all the facts out," he said. "What that timetable is, I don't know exactly, but he definitely is chomping at the bit."

As for O'Brien, he said he didn't feel as if anyone knew "what the guy that follows Joe Paterno is going to face."

"You're not replacing Joe Paterno," he told Rinaldi. "You've become the head coach at Penn State. . . . You try and just carry on the goals and the values and the things that have always been a part of this program, and I think that's the only challenge you have to worry about."