Don’t call a deep shot from Trace McSorley to a Penn State receiver downfield a 50/50 ball.
‘We like to say there’s no such thing as a 50/50 ball,’ says Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead. ‘It’s a 100 ball.’
Moorpoints has a point:
Why would a team pass deep downfield if an opposing defensive back had the same chance as a Nittany Lion to catch the ball?
Of course, that was hardly the case for Penn State in 2016, save for the end zone interception by Pitt’s Ryan Lewis with 75 seconds left in the game and the Nittany Lions a 48-yard field goal away from sending it into overtime.
Or in 2017, save for the dagger-in-the-heart pick by USC’s Leon McQuay with 27 seconds left in Rose Bowl, and the score tied at 49-all.
Half of McSorley’s eight interceptions last season came in those two games. None of us likes to be judged by his worst moments. So, take away those two devastating interceptions, as well as McSorley’s other two picks vs. Southern Cal, and his remaining 383 passes in 2016 ended up this way, percentage-wise:
58.5% were caught by Penn State receivers (224).
1.04% were caught by opposing defenders (4).
41.4% were incomplete (155).
Doesn’t look like 50/50 to me. Or to Moorhead. Unless we talking a 50% chance of a completion vs. a 50% chance of a relatively harmless incompletion.
‘When the ball’s in the air, it’s ours,’ says Moorhead. ‘Our receivers have done a great job going up and making plays, and our tight ends and backs do as well.’
PICKY, PICKY
So, on the surface, the deep pick vs. Pitt was an anomaly. At least until that deep interception with the Rose Bowl on the line 114 days later. That one can be attributed to a number of things: McSorley was tired. Or that he forced it. Or that Penn State should have seen it coming, since the previous play was almost an interception and clearly foreshadowed what was about to happen. Or that Penn State should’ve played for the tie in regulation.
Or that Moorhead and Penn State were dancing with who brought ’em.
No matter the decision, even if the odds were 50/50, the final interception — on Penn State’s 391st and last pass of its 11-3 season — was still a rarity.
And, as Moorhead pointed out prior to the Rose Bowl, Penn State’s success at the deep ball in 2016 wasn’t just based on McSorley, its first-year starting quarterback.
‘That’s not only Trace,’ Moorhead said, ‘that’s our linemen being able to protect. And it’s our receivers and our tight ends running the correct routes. And then it’s them being able to come down with the ball.’
USC and Pitt aside, Penn State made its living on the deep ball in 2016 — often on downfield routes ending on heavily-contested passes (Chris Godwin’s forte), but sometimes on big-time catch-and-runs (ala Saaed Blacknall’s in the Big Ten title game).
McSORLEY NO. 1
McSorley was the top-ranked passer in major college in 2016 for average yards per completion, at 16.13 yards per catch. He was followed by some pretty heady company: 2.) Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma, 15.61; 3.) Mike White, Western Kentucky, 15.58; 4.) Nate Peterman, Pitt, 15.43; and Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson, Louisville, 15.40.
In all, 67 of McSorley’s 224 completions — three out of every 10 (30%) — went for over 20 yards, while one out of every seven (14%) went for 30 yards or more.
Here’s the amazing thing, if you can believe Joe. Moorhead says those deep plays happened organically, more than by design.
‘I think they happen naturally within the construct of our offense,’ he says. ‘…In the pass game, we’re going to have three-step (drops by the QB), we’re going to have five-step, and our play-action shots down the field.
‘A lot of those occur naturally within the fabric of the game. It’s not something we’re going to press and say we’re going to throw the ball down the field this quarter because we need to. It’s something we need to make more adjustments to the coverages and things like that.’
The worry with Penn State is that the departure of Godwin to the NFL is going to hurt its deep passing game. And that’s true, it will. Godwin wasn’t particularly tall (6-foot-1) and large (205), but he was strong and sturdy and tenacious and could jump. Deep shots to Godwin were more like 90/10 balls.
But, surprisingly, while Godwin was indeed The Guy to go up and get the ball on deep shots, he wasn’t as dominant as you would think when it came to Penn State’s passing plays that went for over 20 yards in 2016.
As the chart below indicates, of the 67 Nittany Lion completions that covered 20 or more yards last season (total yards, catch and run-after-the-catch), Godwin led the team, with 18. But the agile and flexible Mike Gesicki, at tight end, wasn’t too far behind, with 13. He was followed by DaeSean Hamilton, more of a possession receiver, with 10, then DeAndre Thompson (7), Blacknall (6) and running back Saquon Barkley (6).
GETTING A JUMP ON 2017
It will be up to Thompson, Blacknall and redshirt sophomores Irvin Charles and Juwan Johnson to pick up the 50/50 mantle from Godwin. They have the size: Blacknall is 6-3, while Charles and Johnson are both 6-4. And Blacknall proved as far back as the Ohio State game in 2014 that he has leaping ability to die for.
McSorley broke down the receiving corps this way pre-Rose Bowl, before Godwin had his monster nine-catch, 187-yard, two-TD performance against USC that included grabs of 29, 30 and 72 yards — and propelled him into the NFL:
‘We really like our receiver match-ups outside,’ McSorley said at the time. ‘We’ve got big, strong, fast guys that can run and are athletic. They can adjust to a ball and go out and make a play high or outrun someone. We like the matchups outside and we realize teams were packing up the box and loading the box, trying to stop the run and gave us one-on-one matchups outside.’
Of course, other than Godwin, Penn State’s receivers in the Rose Bowl weren’t even 50% of their usual selves. Blacknall was suspended and didn’t play, while Hamilton didn’t make a catch and Thompkins was held to two receptions for nine yards. That’s why there is some extra consternation about Godwin’s departure.
Moorhead, for one, puts a lot of faith in one thing: The quarterback remains the same, if not better after a full season under what was a new offense, McSorley’s first as a collegiate starter.
McSMART
To begin, says, Moorhead, McSorley’s arm is ‘stronger than you think.’ But that’s the least of it.
‘To me it’s a lot about ball placement, and understanding coverage, pre-snap and post-snap,’ says Moorhead, who doubles as O-coordinator and quarterback coach. ‘That’s something I think is great about what we do and unique about our spread. There’s kind of a knock about the spread offense that it’s a dink-and-dunk, that it’s single reads, and the quarterback isn’t reading things post-snap.
‘What’s great about Trace is that we have reads of where he needs to go with the ball based on safety rotation — one high, two high, things like that. Not only is he throwing the deep ball well, he’s throwing it to the right person when he’s open. So I think that has a lot to do with it, too, that he’s been accurate. But he’s also made the right reads to get it to the right person within the pass concept.’
For McSorley, a big part of the offense is not the individual players. It’s more of a simple formula: play-caller (Moorhead) + scheme + mentality = confidence and, ultimately, success.
It worked in Moorhead’s four seasons at Fordham. And it translated — very quickly — to Penn State in 2016. Keeping Moorhead on campus was a lot more important than retaining Godwn — no offense, Chris. Or, actually, lots of offense, with Joe.
‘Coach Moorhead is very passionate and brings a ton of energy to our team and to our offense,’ McSorley says. ‘Bringing that energy has given us that same type of energy and that mentality… (of) always being in attack mode and taking the shots. We know he’s not going to leave any call on the call sheet that he feels is going to help us with the game or going to be a big play.
‘So we know that as offense. We’re excited for it. We see that call come in, and we know this is an opportunity for us to make a big play. We want to go make that play and now it’s kind of you’re in that rhythm, getting the high tempo going. It helps us out that much more. It’s kind of fun to be playing it.’
No doubt about it. There’s nothing up in the air about that.
