Ray Priore, who had been a coach at the University of Pennsylvania for 38 years and led the Quakers for 11 seasons, is stepping down as head football coach. The school announced Priore’s decision on Monday, Nov. 24.
Priore went 58-42 at the Philadelphia school, going 37-32 in the Ivy League and winning two conference titles. In an interview with USA TODAY Sports last week for a story about college recruiting, Priore said he always thought his greater job was developing his players as individuals.
‘I’m a very, very rare person in this world from a coaching standpoint because I’ve been here for 38 years,’ he said. ‘Most coaches, you’re in, you’re out, and you very rarely see the result of what happens down the line. I think we’re very fortunate because I’ve been here (and) build the whole person.’
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Penn finished 6-4 (4-3 Ivy League) this season, getting blown out by Cornell and Yale and losing at the last second to Harvard. The team lost running back Malachi Hosley, the 2024 Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year, in a transfer to Georgia Tech.
‘Kid is one of the most talented young men that I’ve been around in my years of coaching,’ he told USA TODAY Sports last week. ‘When you lose a person like that, OK, while it’s a benefit to the team he’s going to, it’s devastating to the team you’re there. I’m happy for him because I think it’s, he’s at a level and perhaps the NIL situation is helping his family. And I think that that’s a good thing. Hurtful, from the standpoint it hurts us.
‘Recruiting is not only the kids you do in high school, it’s recruiting your kids to stay here. And not get entertained.’
Priore won Ivy League titles in his first two seasons as head coach (2015-16), but had five with six or more wins since then, including 8-2 in 2022. He spoke last week about how the ramped up world of NIL and the transfer portal has made recruiting, and selling the long-term benefits of an Ivy League education against short-term gain of Name Image and Likeness deals at other schools, much more of a challenge.
Ivy League schools don’t offer NIL deals or athletic scholarships. Financial aid is based on need.
‘Not everybody that you recruit is gonna turn into a star,’ Priore says. ‘They’ll have a role, but what is that role? You recruit 30 kids a year into a class, let’s say. How many of the 30 are you going to get right on? Probably a third of the 30 will be that top level all-league performing type thing. The middle 30 will be good football players, starters. And then the other third will be role players, whatever it may be.
‘So I think when kids look to come to place like Penn, they’re looking for the next 40 (years) as an investment, play good football, get the great education, and then make those relationships from there.’
Priore, a Long Island, New York, native began his career as a defensive backs coach in 1985 at the University of Albany, where he was also a player.
‘If you ever can work at something you love to do, you never work a day in your life,’ Priore said. ‘And honestly, I say that adage to everybody, that was my college coach’s motto. Bob Ford in Albany, once upon a time, said that to us, as a little freshman. And it always stuck with me. If you like to golf and someone could pay you to golf, go golf. You like to cook (and) get paid to do it, what a great thing.’
According to Penn, a national search for the next head coach begins immediately.