Will Sammon with a good Athletic article on Joe Moorhead’s move to Akron…

[Maroon Eagle]

As mentioned in previous threads on this topic, it’s largely a family move.

[FONT="]Based on his resume, it's likely he could've landed a P5 job. On why Joe Moorhead instead jumped at the chance to take the Akron head coaching gig. (a baseball lockout means an opportunity or two to write again for @TheAthleticCFB in the meantime) https://t.co/XnE7OQOA04— Will Sammon (@WillSammon) December 27, 2021 [/FONT]

 

[Maroonthirteen]

Well I am not a subscriber. So what was the criteria?

I see his son plays college football about 90 miles away from Akron. I'm sure that had something to do with it.

I really liked the guy. I hate it didn't work out for him at State.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

In addition to that (which was mentioned), two hours from Pittsburgh and also not far from his wife’s family. He also promised his son who is in the eighth grade that he’d stay in the same high school— so no moves are planned.

Like you, I hate it didn’t work out for him.

I thought Moorhead was a *great* on paper hire.

Sammon thinks that timing was an issue (being the coach after Don) and Moorhead overpromised and under-delivered. From the piece:

Some point to a lack of a culture fit with Moorhead and Mississippi, but that may be overblown. Sure, Moorhead wasn’t a southerner. Neither was Mullen. As with Mullen, there may have always been gripes about Moorhead’s confident personality and how he expressed it. But if he won more, it would’ve been further embraced. The problem is, the expectations weren’t in line with historical standards and Moorhead’s results didn’t match them. If anything, timing was a problem. Moorhead came after Mullen, the school’s best coach, inherited a solid group and brought with him an impressive resume. There was a disconnect, even if pinpointing it is difficult.

 

[Smoked Toag]

If he could have landed a P5 job, he would have landed a P5 job. Why didn't Oregon even give him half a look, if his 'resume' was so good?

I get the whole being home part, but I don't think it really means much unless he's at Penn State or Pittsburgh. I mean he left Penn State to come here, so much for home. He probably could have stayed at Penn State and been OC as long as he wanted, too.

I think he may make a great NFL coach. He's got great people skills, and you don't have to worry about discipline in the NFL.

 

[DogStuckAtUM.sixpack]

Agreed. On paper, it looked like an awesome hire. But due to multiple reasons, it didn’t pan out. Glad we cut bait when we did.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I don’t think that trying to stay in Oregon or the Pacific Northwest was what he wanted.

He’s previously been at Akron, got a $7 million buyout from State, and had a health issue this season, so why not — for lack of a better word — downsize?

 

[Requiem For A Dawg]

Dude is a clown. I will never forgive him for wasting that 2018 defense then sarcastically comparing them to the 85 Bears.

 

[Cooterpoot]

He didn't have P5 offers. But I suspect his health issues and that large chunk of money we gave him, made a smaller job close to home a good fit.
He'll, if I've already banked millions, I'm not breaking my neck at a tough job. I'm enjoying life.

 

[OliveBranchDAWG]

Dude is a clown. I will never forgive him for wasting that 2018 defense then sarcastically comparing them to the 85 Bears.

This. It can’t be stated enough how he royally effed up 2018. Should’ve been a minimum 10-2 season with the roster he inherited.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Exactly.

 

[Chesusdog]

This. It can’t be stated enough how he royally effed up 2018. Should’ve been a minimum 10-2 season with the roster he inherited.

And yet somehow he saw Fitz and thought he could run a pass-first offense through him.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Dude is a clown. I will never forgive him for wasting that 2018 defense then sarcastically comparing them to the 85 Bears.

I don't blame Slophead completely. Cohen knew what he was getting, and he knew what would be coming back. Logic tells you that you keep doing what you're doing if it's working, and what Mullen was doing was working. We needed to either promote from within or hire a defensive coach who would keep the same offense at work, at least in the short-term.

Cohen just HAD to have the pass-happy deal, and in getting that, he also got a guy who had no disciplinary skills. He should have just hired Mike Leach from the beginning. The results likely would have been the same, but at least we'd have discipline. Who knows, maybe we could have brought in Minshew and moved Fitz to WR.

He probably should have just promoted Grantham. Yes, it likely would have crashed and burned in year 2 or 3 too, but that 2018 team likely goes 10-2 minimum, and those type seasons just don't come around that often.

 

[OliveBranchDAWG]

And yet somehow he saw Fitz and thought he could run a pass-first offense through him.

Moorhead’s gameplan @ Kentucky that year was one of the worst coaching performances you’ll ever see. Raining against a strong edge rushing team and we ran the ball a total of 12 times between Kylin Hill & Aeris Williams. Brutal.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Moorhead’s gameplan @ Kentucky that year was one of the worst coaching performances you’ll ever see. Raining against a strong edge rushing team and we ran the ball a total of 12 times between Kylin Hill & Aeris Williams. Brutal.

He's a system coach, he doesn't know how to do anything else. That's why even our run game looked discombobulated (when he was forced to do it), and the reason we won the games we did was TALENT. That's what Cohen hired. Just like with Leach, he did what we hired him to do. What do you think Leach would have done in that Kentucky game?

People are so narrow-minded when they talk about these things. They see 'offensive guru' and think we'd be the same as Mullen, except shoring up the passing game. It doesn't work that way. Mullen was NOT a system coach.

 

[Go Budaw]

And yet somehow he saw Fitz and thought he could run a pass-first offense through him.

We ran the ball 60.3% of the time in 2018. Then in 2019, with not one but two QB’s who were hand picked by Moorhead for his offense, we ran it even more (60.82%) than we did with Fitz as QB, in spite of getting blown out several times and thus being in pass-heavy game scripts. The whole narrative of the “pass first” offense under Moorhead has never been backed up by facts. 112th and 113th in the country in pass play call % those 2 years. It was an overly complicated, often inefficient offense, but it wasn’t pass first in any sense. It reacted to what the defense showed, so it by definition wasn’t trying to do anything “first”.

 

[archdog]

Moorhead’s gameplan @ Kentucky that year was one of the worst coaching performances you’ll ever see. Raining against a strong edge rushing team and we ran the ball a total of 12 times between Kylin Hill & Aeris Williams. Brutal.

He absolutely did not want Aeris even touching the ball. I don't care what upside Kylin had, Aeris was the better running back that year and maybe even now. I love Kylin, don't get me wrong. Aeris was better in '18 though.

 

[Irondawg]

To judge Moorhead it was a certainly a “you had to be here” type of deal to really understand the dysfunction going on.

Looking at the team records doesn’t tell much of the story. So guys writing articles from afar won’t really ever understand all the issues.

Sure, some of it is clearly on Cohen but Joe simply was ready and his offense seems to consistently struggle against other good teams so I don’t think it’s as good as advertised either.

That said he’s a really good guy and hope he figures it out and does a nice job at Akron

 

[Choctaw Dawg]

Moorhead’s gameplan @ Kentucky that year was one of the worst coaching performances you’ll ever see. Raining against a strong edge rushing team and we ran the ball a total of 12 times between Kylin Hill & Aeris Williams. Brutal.

I'll do you one better, the Iowa game that year was worse. Fitz running the same fake toss play 3 plays in a row inside the 5 was just idiotic. A power run up the middle would have scored.

Fitz said it all on a podcast once, he said the same guys that never showed up late for team meetings under Mullen were always late to team meetings under Moorhead.

 

[patdog]

Bottom line is Moorhead seriously underperformed with a loaded roster his first season and then regressed in his second & got testy with the criticism. If he’d won a little more, we would have loved him.

 

[paindonthurt]

At the end of the day it’s abt winning.

He didn’t win as many as he should have especially his first year.

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

Glad he got another job. But I’m also glad he isn’t here