Penn State has an opening on its football staff, as Special Teams Coordinator and Assistant Defensive Line coach Phil Galiano is leaving to pursue an opportunity in the NFL, Lions247 has confirmed. The University listed the position on its official Jobs web site late Thursday night and Penn State Athletics confirmed his departure on Friday morning.

"We are excited for Phil and his family," read the statement. "This is a tremendous opportunity for Phil to return to the NFL. We are very appreciative of Phil and everything he has done for our program over the last two years. We wish him nothing but success moving forward."

ESPN's Adam Schefter reports Galiano will become the New Orleans Saints' assistant special teams coach.

The opening means that the Nittany Lions will have to fill a second opening this offseason. Former wide receivers coach David Corley was let go after the Citrus Bowl and replaced by Gerad Parker in January.

Head coach James Franklin was asked directly about Galiano last week at his National Signing Day press conference.

“I have tremendous confidence in all of our coaches, in all of our coaches based on their experience, based on their background. And for me, I don't make decisions just based on one area. It's a body of work. It's how are they with the players. It's how are they in terms of the staff. It's in terms of development of the individual players. It's in development of the scheme. It's in production on game day. It's an organization and practice. It's the type of role model they are for our players. It's all of it.

“And for me it always comes down to is this the right thing to do for our program long term? And is the investment that we're making, are we going to get a return on that investment and how long are we going to have to wait for that return on that investment?

“So for me, the guys that we have on our staff and the guys we have in our organization, we feel very confident on. And again there's a lot of different paths and there's a lot of different journeys to get there.

“Some guys, guys are going to walk in and there's going to be an immediate impact. And some guys it's going to take a little bit more time. And I get that. And I understand that. But I'm a big believer that the men that we come to work with every single day, and that's our players and that's the coaches and that's all of us. And so that's where we're at at this point with our staff and with our players.”

Penn State’s special teams took a noticeable step back in the 2018 season after the departure of Charles Huff, who left for Mississippi State with Joe Moorhead. The Nittany Lions ranked 77th in the country in Bill Connelly’s S&P Special Teams ratings last season, just two years removed from finishing 11th in the country. The Nittany Lions did finish second in the conference and punting and kick returns, but glaring lapses in coverage, like a 58-yard punt return by Kentucky’s Lynn Bowden in the Citrus Bowl and a pair of onside kicks that were recovered by the kicking team.

Franklin talked about the special teams frustrations following the loss to the Wildcats last month.

“I think it’s a couple things. It’s inconsistency. We punt the ball 73 yards once and then we shank the next. That’s kinda happened throughout the year. It’s our execution. It’s the responsibility of us as coaches to make sure they’re confident and understand what their responsibilities are. We haven’t done it. We haven’t done it consistently all year long,” he said.

“It’s a concern coming into the season we knew, relying on two true freshmen in the specialist positions, that was going to be a little bit of a concern, but we’ve also had some opportunities that we haven’t made. We haven’t made plays, we haven’t done consistently what we’ve needed to do. Like everything, we’ll evaluate it, we’ll take a deep dive in it and we’ll ask tough questions to ourselves. We’ll look at everything. A through Z, we’ll look at everything. We’ll have tough conversations and do what we’ve gotta do to get better. But it was not up to our standards today. It was not up to our standards all year long.”

Galiano, a former Rutgers assistant and native of Norristown, Pa., recruited Philadelphia, Delaware and New Jersey for the Nittany Lions as well as assisting Sean Spencer on the trail. He was on point or had a hand in Penn State signing a strong Class of 2019, including offensive linemen Caedan Wallace and Saleem Wormley as well as defensive linemen Adisa Isaac and Smith Vilbert. As Special Teams Coordinator, Galiano also headed up the Nittany Lions’ special teams recruiting efforts. Penn State didn’t use a scholarship on a specialist in the 2019 class but has walk-on commitments from longsnapper Austin Sullivan, kickers Anthony DaSilva and Sebastian Costantini and Junior College punter Bradley King.