“Sophisticated simplicity.”
That’s what the Joe Moorhead Offense is, says the eponymous creator’s chief disciple and immediate successor at Fordham, Andrew Breiner.
For many of Penn State’s opponents in 2016, it was more like a kick in the head – to the tune of almost 46 points per game over the final eight contests.
Moorhead himself takes the de-feeted analogy one step further. It’s simple, all right. Simply repeat again and again and again.
“I think it’s like the Bruce Lee kick: Fear not the man who practices 1,000 kicks one time, but the one who instead does one kick 10,000 times,” says Moorhead, beginning his second year as Penn State’s offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. “And I think that’s part of it.
“We don’t do a bunch of different things, but the things we do we do very well. And when you have that, and you see how a defense is trying to defend your offense, you’re able to make those adjustments that much more quickly. So much of it is, too, how our guys understand it.”
It’s not like the Nittany Lions have a huge playbook, with millions of options. Prior to Moorhead’s arrival, the Penn State receivers had a route tree, with options off of each route they ran. The moves they made were based not only on what they saw, but also on the quarterback – Christian Hackenberg – seeing the same thing. Hence, the permutations…and hesitations…were myriad.
Not so with Joe, as he explained in a pair of pre-Rose Bowl week media sessions, one with a small group and the other one-on-one with yours truly.
“By formation we generally have four or five runs and probably six to eight passes,” he said. “If it’s a play that’s called and you can run into a bad look, there’s generally only one or two plays that go along with that as a counter-punch, so to speak. That’s what goes along with it when you’re anticipating what they’re going to run. Then you react to what they show.”
SIDEWAYS GLANCE
At that point, those reactions are why the Nittany Lions’ offense looks to the sidelines. That’s when and how they find out exactly what Moorhead’s counter-punch is.
Often, that chess move is what made the Penn State so efficient and effective. Consider this: In 2016, Penn State’s offense ran just three more plays per game than it did in 2015 – 66.5 plays to 63.7. But, almost literally, two of those plays went for touchdowns, as in 2016 Penn State’s scoring went up 14.4 points per game, from 23.2 to 37.6 per game.
Why and how? As we all now, big plays had a hand in it.
The Nittany Lion offense had 91 plays of 20 or more yards in 2016 – exactly seven per game, nearly two per quarter. (Interestingly, PSU had zero 20-plus plays in both the first and fourth quarters against USC in the Rose Bowl.) Compare that to 2014, when it had just half as many 20-plus plays (45), and to 2015, when it had only 56. The biggest change came in the passing game, as the Nittany Lions jumped from 36 passing plays of 20 yards or more in 2015 to 65 in 2016. And the average catch jumped from 13 yards in 2015 to a nation-leading 16.2 yards in 2016. Penn State threw less (only 42% of the time), but gained more.
That was by design, too.
“When we talked about the installation of this offense initially, we said it was predicated on running the ball successfully,” Moorhead said. “When you’re able to do that, it forces defenses to commit numbers to the box either by secondary support or by pressure. When you do that, you create one-on-one match-ups on the outside. I think we’ve shown the ability where if a team’s going to give us a favorable box to run the ball, we’ve been able to exploit it with Saquon (Barkley). And teams who are adamant about shutting him down and playing a heavy run defense, we’ve been able to throw the ball deep.
“We’re multi-dimensional in the sense that we’re able to run it and throw it with success. Our play-action game really complements our most effective run game. That’s been the integral part to our success this year.”
Success comes in many forms and can be measured many ways. But for an offense, the whole point(s) of it all is to score points. Moorhead gets that, and never lets his players forget it, either.
THE MOORPOINT
“Ultimately, I talked to our kids about the success of our offense being predicated on how many points we score,” he said. “You know, people talk about yards and all that stuff. But, you know, I think we’ve done a good job putting points on the board and having the ability to call the right plays at the right time. It’s something that I take a lot of pride in.”
Sometimes in 2016, the play that Moorhead eventually ended up calling was never even in that week’s game plan. But when the occasion called for it, he was able to dig it out of storage. It may have been a play the Nittany Lions practiced a bunch in the preseason or several weeks previously. But come crunch time, whoomp there it is.
On occasion, the best play for the situation – as deemed by Moorhead — was in the players’ residual memory dating as far back to when the offense was originally installed last spring. Still, Moorhead would feel comfortable dialing it up. Even if he hadn’t called its number in weeks.
TO THE BANK
“We call them banked repetitions,” Moorhead said. “And that’s a great thing, I think. Banked reps. We may not have run a play for two or three weeks. But we had done it so many times throughout the course of spring ball and fall camp, that it was second nature to the kids. On a weekly basis, you’re not creating a new offense. You just do what you do, then tailor it to the best way to attack based on how the defense is playing.”
Moorhead went to the bank in the second half of the Big Ten title game against Wisconsin in Indy. Twice. Once on a TD pass from quarterback Trace McSorley to wide receiver Saaed Blacknall, on a post play. And again on a TD pass to Barkley – via the ever-popular wheel route.
“In the Big Ten championship game, two of the touchdowns we called weren’t even on the call sheet,” Moorhead said. “We bring what we call our menu into the meeting at halftime. In going over the adjustments, we say, ‘OK, guys what’s not on the game plan, but we would like in the game?’ Part of it is sticking to the plan and part of it is making the adjustments.
“In the route that Saquon caught, we didn’t talk about it. It was just something that we saw they were in and the kids just ran it. It wasn’t like we were creating new plays or drawing them up in the dirt. They were within our system.”
The result was no secret:
“Our kids,” said Moorhead, “didn’t even flinch.”
