Adam Breneman views Penn State football now through a uniquely personal lens. Though the foundation remains recognizable (Breneman played for Bill O’Brien and was recruited by Joe Paterno), Penn State’s program is far different than the one he knew in the 2010s. Principally regarding this.

“I think the biggest thing that’s changed recently is just, clearly, there’s been a commitment to do whatever it takes to win at the highest level at Penn State,” Breneman said in a recent interview. “And I don’t think that Penn State had that for a while.”

The former Penn State and UMass tight end and Arizona State assistant coach now is a leading young voice in college football media. Breneman, 30, co-founded The College Sports Company, a media enterprise, and is involved with its Penn State brand, State Media.

Breneman interviews the game’s top coaches and players for his podcast, Next Up With Adam Breneman, and has turned social media into a powerful personal platform. Recently, Breneman sat down with Penn State on SI to discuss his twisting career, his relationship with Penn State and his ideas for creating athlete-driven media.

Here’s Part 2 of that interview. Check out Part 1 here.

Question: How is the Penn State football program different than the one you played for?

Adam Breneman: I think the biggest thing that’s changed recently is just, clearly, there’s been a commitment to do whatever it takes to win at the highest level at Penn State. And I don’t think that Penn State had that for a while. I feel like for a long time, Penn State, for a lot of good reasons, had a certain way of doing things. It was, Penn State was different than everybody else. It was maybe more old-school at times, and you have all these pieces that were a little bit outdated, like the facilities and things like that. But if you recruit the right kind of people, those things didn’t matter at Penn State.

In today’s college football, things have changed completely. You need money, you need to compete, you need to keep up in order to win at the highest level. And [athletic director] Pat Kraft and the president [Neeli Bendapudi] and coach [James] Franklin, everyone has invested in what it takes to win at the highest level. If the expectation is that you’re going to beat all these teams, you’d better have the resources that they all have. And I think now, for the first time in a while at Penn State, there’s the resources that it takes to win at the very highest level of college football.

Now it’s time to go do it, as they have in the past, but time to win a national championship. I think now the resources are there. I mean, look at the hire of [defensive coordinator] Jim Knowles and what it took to get that done. Think about keeping all those players on their roster and not having them transfer or go to the NFL. It doesn’t happen without big-time financial resources. That’s a big change that has happened recently at Penn State.

Question: What’s different about the Lasch Football Building from when you played?

Breneman: Everything’s brand new in that thing. Every time you go, there’s new construction being done. Everything is state of the art. There’s sleep rooms, and there’s recovery rooms, and there’s a quarterback-specific training room. There’s just so many things that are really good for players. The facility was good when we when were there, but it’s even better now. And I think that’s a testament to all the resources it takes to win.

Question: How do you try to contribute to that through State Media and The College Sports Company?

Breneman: Our belief is that athletes want to be part of content and want to contribute on social media. If I would have done that when I was playing football, I would have gotten laughed out of the room. But now it’s common, and everyone wants to do it. We wanted to give athletes a place to do that. I think on top of it, every school and collective needed to find ways to make new money, to drive new revenue to pay the players. And we thought that creating a media network, and having these shows and assets that brands and donors can put money behind, was a great way to do that.

So that’s when we started The College Sports Company and State Media. We have networks at Louisville, South Carolina, Tennessee, BYU, schools all over the country. And really the goal is to create great content for the fans, to show the fans a different side of current and former players and to build up the program and the brand. But most importantly, it’s to drive new revenue for the players.

Question: How are you driving revenue for players?

Breneman: We operate like any other media company, where we are selling sponsorships and advertising, a lot of times to local businesses and donors. And then we have deals at each school where a certain amount, usually the vast majority, of the money goes directly to the athletes who are part of everything. So it’s a great way for schools to find ways to use donor money to find new advertisers and for us to find national advertisers. We believe it’s the future of college sports, and the schools and the NIL collectives that really think like media companies and operate like them will be the ones that are successful in driving the most revenue.

Question: How has growth gone with State Media?

Breneman: State Media has been great. We’ve done close to seven figures in revenue, and we have some media networks that are doing north of a million dollars a year in revenue. It’s pretty early, and we’re still kind of adjusting and adapting. We’re working out some new partnerships at Penn State, which I think will help us from a scaling and access and revenue standpoint. So it’s really good. We are excited about it and we think the future is pretty bright. And the cool thing is that the players and the former players are really into it and excited to be part of it.

Question: How has Penn State received the idea?

Breneman: We operate like any other media company would at Penn State. We obviously have kind of unique access but we still get approval for things we’re doing and still run things by the [athletic communications department]. We comply by that standard. I mean, really almost everything we’re doing is extremely positive about the school, obviously. But the one unique thing is, the way we operate is really outside of the direct university partnership so that we can really participate in NIL directly. There are a lot of rules around NIL and who can be part of it. So we’re a separate entity. We’re a for-profit company. We are outside of the athletic department, but we obviously work closely with the school and have a direct partnership with the NIL collective [Happy Valley United].

Question: Who has been your best Penn State interview so far?

Breneman: Coach Franklin has been great. I’ve done two interviews with him, and I think in both he’s been very candid and transparent. I’ve had a lot of people saying, ‘Hey, I haven’t really seen coach Franklin that open and honest before,’ which I think is really cool. And I know Coach enjoys doing it. I thought [offensive coordinator] Andy Kotelnicki was a great interview. He was exciting and entertaining, but I always enjoy talking to the players too. They’re fun.

Question: What has been most illuminating about your interviews with coach Franklin?

Breneman: One of the fun things we talked about is the time when he got to Penn State, when he was still dealing with sanctions. He alluded to how he didn’t know what he was walking into. He didn’t quite get the full story during the interview process of what was going on as they were selling him the job. And I thought he was pretty open about that.

We talked about some of the adversity. He talked about 2016 and the crowd chanting, ‘fire Franklin’ as he walked off the field [at halftime of the Minnesota game]. And then they turn around and win the Big 10 Championship. I thought was really cool. I asked him in my last interview, ‘Do you ever think that the fans will fully appreciate what you’ve done here in your 10 years?’ And he said, ‘No, but no one gives a s—.’ I think it was his exact quote. So I thought that was a pretty neat answer.

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