Joe Moorhead rarely met with the media when he was at Penn State.
But when he did, Moorhead — a former sportswriter with a sharp and quick sense of humor and irony, punctuated with self-confidence — was a great interview.
Mostly, though, he let Penn State’s offense speak for itself.
And it did so loudly, from the Nittany mountaintops.
In Moorhead’s 718 days and 26 games at the helm, Penn State totaled 1,025 points (39.4 ppg), 11,495 yards (442 ypg, 6.5 per play) and 126 touchdowns (4.8 per game).
He taught PSU a new offense that paid huge dividends. But what, in turn, did @BallCoachJoeMo learn at his previous institution and from James Franklin that can provide some insight into Penn State’s 2018 season, even though he is now head coach at Mississippi State?
We came up with a half-dozen JoeMo-inspired lessons that are important as Penn State closes in on the start of official summer drills in two weeks. (A tip of the hat to writers Bill Connelly of SB Nation and Dustin Hockensmith of PennLive.com and Keystone Sports Report for their good reporting, which we reference below.)
They are:
1. RICKY RAHNE IS READY
Moorhead shared some insight with me this spring for a piece (read it here) I did about his successor, Ricky Rahne, the Nittany Lions’ offensive coordinator heading into the 2018 season. Rahne came to Penn State with Franklin in 2014, spent two years as the QB coach, then shifted to tight ends coach with Moorhead’s arrival. He was promoted to offensive coordinator and quarterback coach when Moorhead left for Mississippi State.
“Ricky combines tremendous intelligence and work ethic,” Moorhead said. “He’s an excellent communicator, teacher and motivator. I am so excited for him and this opportunity. He will absolutely make the most if it. The offense looked great in the bowl game and will continue to improve in the fall.”
2. NO SAQUON? NO PROBLEM
In a recent in-depth interview with Moorhead, Dustin Hockensmith of PennLive.com and Keystone Sports Report asked the coach about how Penn State’s offense would fare in 2018 (read about and listen to the interview here).
At Penn State “last year,” Moorhead said, “defenses were centered around taking Saquon Barkley out of the game — either through blitzes or loading the box. That was putting the game into Trace’s hands. And a lot of times he had to win it by throwing the ball or running it. And he did.
“I think not having Saquon is going to create a different dynamic of who (opposing defenses) are going to try to defend. You’ve got ample weapons. Miles (Sanders) is going to do an awesome job. You know, there’s Juwan (Johnson), DeAndre (Thompkins) and a bunch of young guys in the slot. So I think this is really going to elevate Trace and give him a good opportunity.”
3. PROGRESS = FEWER DEEP BALLS + BETTER PROGRESSIONS
Look for McSorley to look all over the field for a host of weapons, both old and new, near and far.
In 2017, “defenses were attempting to take away the big plays,” Moorhead told Bill Connelly of SB Nation in an excellent breakdown of JoeMo’s offense (read it here). “Trace read it, the deep ball wasn’t there, and he came down to our second or third option. Or the coverage for us to go deep wasn’t right, and we ended up going to the other side of the field.”
4. LET TRACE RUN
You know the story from 2016: Penn State, 2-2, trailed Minnesota 13-3 in the third quarter in Beaver Stadium. Moorhead called a pass play that typically went to Mike Gesicki. But Gesicki and Saquon were covered. That left Irv Charles, the middle of a three-receiver set, as Trace McSorley’s only option.
“The post part of that route is one that may have changed our whole tenure at Penn State,” Moorhead told Connelly. “Irv Charles caught it … actually the ball kinda caught him … but he split it for 80.”
But it was a play later in the game, when McSorley scrambled for 26 yards and first down, to keep the drive alive that set up the game-tying field goal, which defined the offense — even beyond Barkley.
“That was the point in that season when everything kinda turned around,” Moorhead said. “From that point on, we made a conscious decision that we were gonna run Trace more. And that opened up a lot of things for us.”
5. FRANKLIN’S RECRUITING TEMPLATE WORKS
“…Certainly my time at Penn State from a program-building standpoint, from a cultural aspect, from an X’s and O’s of what we did and certainly Coach (Franklin) is a renowned recruiter — I carried those good things down to Mississippi State,” Moorhead told Hockensmith.
“You’ve got to be thorough in every aspect of it, whether it’s the young man you’ve recruited or his parents or a guardian or a key person in a decision-making process. It’s about identifying what’s important to the kid relative to his decision-making criteria and being able to effectively communicate how your school meets those desires. There’s punctuality, attention to details and all those things are critical.”
6. LEAVE YOUR PAST BEHIND
This may very well be the most important lesson of the group.
In his opening press conference at MSU (read it here), Moorhead was asked how he turned around Penn State’s offense so quickly. It had More to do with the players’ thoughts than their actions, he said.
‘Very carefully. When you look at the numbers, the transition was somewhat similar to what is was at Fordham, where I think it was like 17 (points) to 33 in first year or something like that. The one thing I talked about with the kids at Penn State was I’m not here to harp on our past, I’m here to create our future.
“So the one thing that we did talk about was that whatever occurred in the past, good or bad, that we were going to write our own book and be the first chapter. And we really just put our heads down and went to work and said this is what we’re going to do, this is how why it’s going to be successful.’
A bit of irony: Now, for Franklin & Co., the challenge again will be to keep Penn State’s players from harping on the past — albeit a very good past.
Consecutive 11-win seasons are great.
But they’re in the past. As is Joe Moorhead.
