STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- Ten years after he passed on another head coaching job, former Penn State

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- Ten years after he passed on another head coaching job, former Penn State player and longtime assistant coach Fran Ganter has finally put behind him the idea of running the show at his alma mater.
"It's a given that my coaching days are over," Ganter said Wednesday, one day after he resigned as Penn State's offensive coordinator and moved into a job in athletic administration. "Surprisingly, it was a little bit easier decision than I thought it would be."
Ganter's move to associate athletic director for football ended a 33-year coaching career spent entirely at Penn State, including the last 20 years as offensive coordinator. It also was the second major coaching change in five years -- Jerry Sandusky, the defensive coordinator who spent 34 years at Penn State, left after the 1999 season -- for a program known for its coaching stability.
"We're losing a heck of a football coach," coach Joe Paterno said, adding that last year's 3-9 season -- the worst in 70 years at Penn State -- had nothing to do with the coaching changes. "Regardless of the season, you go back and look at the '94 team and the way we played offense a year ago, look at the running backs that Frannie's turned out. This isn't an all-win situation in any way. It's a big loss to us, and it's a big loss to me personally."
Ganter will be replaced by Galen Hall, a former Penn State quarterback who won national championships in 1974 and '75 as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma and was AP's national coach of the year at Florida in 1984. After being forced out at Florida for NCAA violations, Hall spent a season as an assistant coach at Penn State in 1990, and has been in the NFL, both in the U.S. and in Europe, since then.
Mike McQueary, a former Penn State quarterback and administrative assistant for the football program, replaces Kenny Carter at wide receivers coach and will take over recruiting coordinator duties from quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno, Joe Paterno's son.
Fans hoping for an insight into the program's future would have gotten little from Wednesday's announcement. Hall said he had not seen quarterbacks Zack Mills or Michael Robinson and couldn't predict who might win the starting spot next year. Nor would he speculate who might fill the gaping holes at wide receiver.
And although Ganter's move to administration takes him off the list of potential successors to Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley said he had not given much thought to potential successors.
More important, Paterno insisted that he has no plans to leave Penn State in the near future.