Penn State hires two football assistants, promotes a third

Penn State head coach James Franklin has promoted assistant coach Ricky Rahne to offensive coordinator and hired two new assistants to fill the staff vacancies left by the departure of Joe Moorhead to Mississippi State, the program announced Friday.

Franklin said former Penn State graduate assistant Tyler Bowen, who spent the 2017 season as offensive line coach at Maryland, has been named tight ends coach. Former Rutgers assistant Phil Galiano, a Norristown native, will be special teams coordinator and assistant defensive line coach.

Moorhead, the Nittany Lions' offensive coordinator for the last two seasons, accepted the head coaching job at Mississippi State on Tuesday, and former running backs coach and special teams coordinator Charles Huff was officially named to his staff on Friday.

Rahne, the Lions' tight ends coach for the last two seasons, also returns to the job as quarterbacks coach that he held in 2014 and 2015.

"We are thrilled to elevate Ricky to offensive coordinator and add Tyler and Phil to our staff," Franklin said in a statement. "Ricky is one of the rising stars in college football. He is extremely sharp, driven, and has a great rapport with our players. He has been very involved in our offensive scheme the last two years, which is why I anticipate our offense will continue to thrive under Ricky."

Rahne also had been passing game coordinator, a job that now will be handled by wide receivers coach Josh Gattis. Offensive line coach Matt Limegrover takes over Huff's former duties as run game coordinator.

Rahne, who played quarterback at Cornell, worked with Franklin in 2006 and 2007 at Kansas State and has been a member of Franklin's staff for the last seven seasons, since Franklin became head coach at Vanderbilt in 2011. In his first two years at Penn State, he worked with Christian Hackenberg.

"Ever since arriving on campus, I've hoped that one day I would earn a chance to lead the offense at Beaver Stadium," Rahne said. "I've been blessed to learn from some of the best offensive minds in the game."

Bowen, who played at Maryland, spent his last three seasons on the Terrapins with Franklin on the staff as offensive coordinator. Franklin hired him as a graduate assistant at Penn State in 2014, and he then worked two years as an assistant at Fordham and one year at Maryland.

Galiano, who has been in the coaching profession for 17 years, served on the Rutgers staff on three different occasions totaling eight years, with his last stint coming in 2015 as special teams coordinator and tight ends coach. He also spent two years as assistant special teams coordinator of the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers.