Gerad Parker Named Penn State’s Wide Receivers Coach

After a nine-day search, Penn State has found its new wide receivers coach in Gerad Parker.

Parker is a 38-year-old Kentucky native who is best known for his stint as Purdue’s interim head coach, when he took over for the fired Darrell Hazell. While Parker didn’t do much during his stint as the head man in West Lafayette, he appears to have a solid background as a wide receivers coach, having coached the position at Marshall from 2011-2012, Purdue from 2015-2016, and then this past year at Duke.

It should be noted that Parker was expected to be the wide receivers coach at East Carolina in 2017, but had his offer rescinded after being arrested and charged with a DUI on February 22, 2017. He ended up taking an “offensive assistant” job at Duke following his dust up, and then was named the full-time wide receivers coach for the 2018 season.

Overall, it seems like a solid hire. He’s coached with running backs coach JaJuan Seider in the past, so hey, a Seider recommendation is pretty good around these parts. Assuming the DUI issue is in the past, it appears that Penn State has itself a good hire.

Welcome, Coach Parker! Now go get Julian Fleming — thanks!