James Franklin considers whether Andy Kotelnicki changes Penn State offensive philosophy

Penn State fired offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich following the 2023 season, paving the way for Kansas‘ Andy Kotelnicki to take over the role.

He will be tasked with breathing life back into the Nittany Lions offense and he’ll be charged with doing it right away. That’s going to require one thing, first and foremost: flexibility.

“If you looked at us over the last couple years, although the last coordinator was more of an 11 personnel guy, that was not necessarily our strength as an offense,” coach James Franklin said. “Our tight end room was one of the better tight end rooms in the country. So I believe that you better have enough flexibility within your system to play to the strengths of your roster.

“And I’d say that is probably uncommon in coaching 101 and in college football. Everybody says that during the interview process, but very few people actually do it.”

Penn State would like to be a program where it has the flexibility to change how the offense looks based on where the strengths are in a given year. That’s often easier said that done.

Franklin feels his team actually did that reasonably well in 2023, despite the lack of end results.

“I thought we did a pretty good job of playing to the strength of our personnel,” Franklin said. “If you look how much we had 12 personnel on the field and 11 personnel, just like I tell our tight ends and I tell the receivers and the coaches, the third receiver’s competing with the second tight end to see who should be on the field. You’re not just competing with the other tight ends, you’re not just competing with the other wide receivers, you’re competing across rooms to say who should be on the field, and it needs to be our best players.”

So Kotelnicki will walk into a situation where the expectation is clear.

What can Penn State fans expect of Kotelnicki, though? That’s a trickier and perhaps more important question.

“I think based on how we played the last couple of years, I don’t think that was an extension of the Joe Moorhead style of spread offense that we were running,” Franklin said. “And I think what Andy was doing at Kansas I think was very similar. The difference, as we’re all very aware of, and trust me, I’m aware of, is what his strength is. (It) was explosive plays. I think they were sixth in the country in explosive plays, but doing it in similar formations and personnel groups that we were in. “

The hope is that Kotelnicki can come right in and coax more out of the offense. He doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

“We were No. 1 in the country in turnover ratio, which is a team stat, but our offense did a great job of protecting the football,” Franklin said. “So what you’re obviously trying to do is you’re trying to marry those two things, the protection of the football on offense, the explosive plays from Kansas, the ability to use different personnel groups is I think a strength of ours, combined with what Andy did at Kansas. That’s where I think it made sense to him and made sense to us. But obviously as we all know, again, the explosive plays were a big part of that.”

Penn State will be hoping for more of them this fall.