There’s no doubt the current Nittany Lions quarterbacks are inexperienced at playing at the collegiate level.
But three of their Penn State coaches are anything but.
Redshirt junior Trace McSorley has carried the ball just 13 times and passed it 40 times in a college game – although his 14 of 27 passing performance in the TaxSlayer Bowl yielded 142 yards, two touchdowns and good vibes.
Redshirt sophomore Tommy Stevens, meanwhile, has yet to play a snap.
On the other (passing) hand, they’re being tutored by a trio of coaches who have started dozens of college football games. So they know whereof they speak – and coach.
Head coach James Franklin (East Stroudsburg), offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Joe Moorhead (Fordham) and tight ends coach Ricky Rahne (Cornell) started a combined eight seasons at quarterback at the college level.
And, overall, as college QBs the three combined for over 1,500 completions, 18,000 passing yards and 120 TD tosses, in addition to more than 1,000 yards rushing.
Add in a combined half-century of coaching offenses at more than 20 schools, and the young Nittany Lion quarterbacks are getting some seasoned advice from some old hands. Here’s a rundown of the coaches’ on-the-field experience:
JOE MOORHEAD
The former Fordham head football coach was also a former Fordham starting quarterback. Moorhead, a Pittsburgh native, went to the school in the Bronx after playing high school QB at Central Catholic.
“I was a one-year starter at Central Catholic, and if there is a definition of pocket passer, that would be it,” Moorhead said back in December. “I could throw the ball very well. I could not get out of my own way and run a lick.” Then he added, with a laugh: “I was first team all-conference quad-A…just saying.
“I went on to Fordham and was a three-year starter there, and had a modicum of success I would say personally. I was an average football player and I had some success in college.”
At Fordham, Moorhead was a three-year starter and a team captain as a senior. He was a second-team All-Patriot League pick as a senior, finishing 13th nationally in total offense, throwing for 2,687 yards with 14 TD passes, while completing 229 passes on 426 attempts. He graduated with school single season records for completions and passing yards.
Overall, Moorhead’s career stats from 1993-95 were 518 of 1,009 for 5,925 yards and 30 touchdown passes. Moorhead put together some big single-game passing performances. He threw for 413 yards against Marist as a senior in 1995, while in his career tallying four 300-yard games – including a 367-yard performance against Harvard — and 15 200-yard games.
He went on to have a successful coaching career as an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach, with stops at Pitt, Georgetown, Akron and UConn, before returning to Fordham as a head coach from 2012-15. He was 38-13 at Fordham, with an explosive up-tempo, diverse offense. The Rams averaged 31.2 points in Moorhead’s first year (2012), then skyrocketed to 37.6, 40.6 and 36.8 points per game.
This is what Moorhead expects from the Penn State offense: “We want the trademarks of our offense to be dictate the tempo, be aggressive and attacking, we want to control the running game and make explosive plays in the passing game. We want to do that, while being successful on third down, not turning the ball over and scoring touchdowns in the red zone.”
JAMES FRANKLIN
Franklin was a two-year starter for East Stroudsburg and won regional conference accolades while directing Denny Douds’ ahead-of-the-times spread offense to records of 7-2-1 in 1993 and 5-5 in 1994. Franklin graduated with 23 school records, 4,687 career passing yards, 36 TD passes and a per-game average of 272 total yards of offense and two touchdowns.
Franklin was a true dual-threat quarterback who could have fared well in a Moorhead offense. In 1994, he was recognized among Sports Illustrated’s “Faces In The Crowd,” following big running performances against Southern Connecticut (28 carries, 170 yards), Mansfield (15-109) and Bloomsburg (19-125).
As a junior, Franklin managed a unique passing-running double, carrying the ball 123 times and completing 123 passes. He rushed for 395 yards (a 3.2-yard average) and scored three rushing TDs. His completions came on 265 passes (46.4%) for 1,912 yards, with 19 TD passes and 13 interceptions.
As a senior in 1994, Franklin ran for 543 yards on 182 carries (3.0 ave.), with seven TDs. As a passer, he was 187 of 364 (51.4%) for 2,586 yards, with 14 TDs and nine picks. He averaged 312.9 yards of offense per game and was a regional candidate for the Harlon Hill Award, given to the top player in Division II.
Franklin was the hands-on quarterback coach twice at the collegiate level, in 2006-07 at Kansas State, and in 2008-10 at Maryland. Both times, he was also the offensive coordinator. While at K-State, he had a 3,000-yard passer in NFL-bound Josh Freeman, a 1,500-yard receiver in All-American Jordy Nelson and a 1,000-yard rusher (James Johnson). At Maryland in 2010, Franklin mentored ACC Rookie of the Year Danny O’Brien, who threw for 2,438 yards, 22 TDs and eight interceptions.
Franklin would be the first to put his playing career into perspective. “Now remember,” he said two years ago, “I did it at East Stroudsburg. I didn’t do it at Penn State.” Still, Franklin says it does help that he played the position at the collegiate level.
“I think having played quarterback helps,” he said in an interview we did his first season at Penn State. “A lot of times people come up with an idea – and it sounds great. But is it necessarily applicable?
“So, it’s the engineer who designs the car and the engine, but he’s never really been the mechanic who worked on it. You have to take it from both the mechanic’s and the engineer’s perspectives and experiences, and put something together that works. It helps that you’ve actually done it – you’re not just a guy who says, ‘Well, you should do it this way,’ but you’ve never actually done it yourself.”
RICKY RAHNE
A Colorado native, Rhane was a three-year starting quarterback at Cornell, where he set 33 Big Red records during a college career that landed him in the Ivy League school’s Hall of Fame.
His 7,710 passing yards ranked third all-time in Ivy League history. A three-time team MVP, he graduated from Cornell as its all-time leader in completions (678), yards (7,710), touchdown passes (54) and 200-yard games (25). He also graduated in the top spot in total offense with 7,994 yards (7,710 passing, 284 rushing).
Rahne was a two-time honorable mention All-Ivy League selection and was named honorable mention All-America in 2000. That season, Cornell won three games by a single point and another by two points. In all, of Rahne’s 14 victories as a starting college quarterback, 10 were by five points or less. Broken down, that’s winning margins of 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, and 5 points.
Rahne coached the quarterback position for five seasons – three at Vanderbilt and two at Penn State. After leaving Cornell and a stint in private industry, he had stops at Holy Cross (assistant D-line), Cornell (running backs) and Kansas State (offensive GA, tight ends, running backs) — two of those seasons (2006-07) at K-State with Franklin.
Now, he is back coaching tight ends for the second time in his career. He found that playing QB helped him when coaching the quarterbacks.
“I think that I played quarterback makes it a little bit easier,” Rahne said. “Guys who haven’t played the position and coach it may have some unrealistic expectations about footwork or what you can see on the play. They may have you looking at two different spots. It’s just unrealistic.
“Since I played back there, I can say, ‘Hey guys, that footwork ain’t going to happen.’ I’m able to do that. And I can help simplify the game a little bit.”
