Adam Breneman has gone from football to politics to coaching to media and he’s just 30 years old. The former Penn State tight end calls this version 4.0 of his career, which still is just beginning.
After losing his coaching job at Arizona State, a period he has called “brutal and humiliating,” Breneman turned to social media, building a college football following that has branded him as a leading young voice of the game.
QUESTON: Youโve gone from player to politics to coaching to media. What version of Adam Breneman are you on now?
ADAM BRENEMAN: It feels like I’ve lived a few different lives and I just turned 30. I’ve learned at a young age that one of the only constants in life is that things never go the way you think they’re going to go. I wouldn’t have believed you if you would have told me that I was going to finish my [playing] career at UMass. If you would have told me in January of 2022 that I was not going to be coaching the next year, I would have thought that was crazy
He co-founded The College Sports Company, which partners with athletic departments, helping athletes produce their own content and generate NIL revenue. State Media, the company’s Penn State outpost, has a direct line to Penn State football players and coaches, producing some of the most compelling interviews on the beat.
As an interviewer, Breneman has spoken with nearly every major college football coach, all of whom seem willing to take his call. Here, Breneman is the interviewee. He sat for a Q&A with Penn State on SI to discuss the curves of his career, his relationship with Penn State and his thoughts on the program a decade after playing there. Here’s Part 1 of that interview.
So what I’ve tried to do throughout my life is, when things happen, to try to turn things that may seem like a negative into a positive. And I’ve tried to adapt and adjust. And I think I’ve been relatively good at just saying, โYou have a choice.’ When things that you don’t want to happen to you happen, it’s all about how you respond to it. And now I’m proud of how I’ve overcome a lot of that stuff, whether it was my injuries, transferring, leaving Arizona State to now. I think that it’s all led me to this moment. Iโd say this is probably version 4.0, and Iโm sure there will be some more iterations that come in the future
But Bill O’Brien getting there really changed my perspective, and he was the perfect guy. So that made it an easy decision. But once I got there, my Penn State career did not go the way I thought it was going to go. I wish I played a lot more games and made more of an impact on the field. But I think of everything now, and the opportunities and the people and the connections I have because of Penn State, itโs really remarkable. It’s a testament to the school and to that decision I made when I was 17 years old
QUESTION: How did your relationship with Penn State start?
BRENEMAN: Growing up, I loved Penn State. But once I started to get recruited and had offers from schools all over the country, I really would tell myself, ‘I’m not going to go to Penn State.’ Because when you’re young, you think, I want to be different. I was going to go to Florida, or Alabama, do something like that. I grew up an hour-and-a-half from Penn State, so I was going to leave home. And then once Bill O’Brien got hired, I couldn’t resist. I was all about it. You know, I was recruited by Joe Paterno and his staff. I was probably one of the last players that Paterno offered a scholarship to. I was recruited by Mike McQueary. I was in there in the heart of it.
