New-look Big Ten, CFP among many factors Penn State should consider in hiring new offensive coordinator

Penn State and head football coach James Franklin made the decision to move on from offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich this week following a paltry offensive showing against Michigan over the weekend. And as Penn State searches for another OC — the sixth of Franklin’s tenure — an array of factors will play a role.

Blue and White Illustrated’s Sean Fitz explore the topic with On3’s Andy Staples on Tuesday. With four new teams joining the league from the Pac-12 in 2024 — three of which are currently among the best offenses in the sport — plus an expanded playoff, how Penn State plays on offense might need to change somewhat, but Fitz doesn’t think any wholesale changes are likely to offer immediate returns.

“Penn State’s identity, I think, is always going to be running the football. But, that’s not necessarily how they’ve scored their points over the last decade. You look back to when Joe Moorhead was here. There was a great deal of success and balance. There was a great deal of that. And James Franklin wants to be balanced. He wants to run the quarterback but I don’t think it’s a be-all, end-all thing. Yeah, I don’t know. I looked at a bunch of, I don’t know if you would call them ‘potential candidates’ or ‘possibilities,’ if you will. And you could go a number of different ways with this,” Fitz said.

He continued: “The problem that I see is that you’re not going to fix the deficiencies that you have on the outside just in one round of portal or one round of recruiting. Like, Penn State still has a lot of issues on the outside. Can’t go to a spread-em-out air raid or something like that. I know Wisconsin’s had their issues this year with a similar change. 

Staples added that Penn State would hit a similar issue to Wisconsin, where a scheme change would be rendered mostly impossible due to a lack of personnel, namely receivers.

“Right. And you can’t just flip that. I know it sounds great but you can’t go out and sign a free agent here,” Fitz said.

Moorhead did intrigue Staples for a potential re-run in Happy Valley. Moorhead is currently the head coach at Akron, but success at the MAC squad is hard to come by and he’s had success as an offensive coordinator in the past, both with the Nittany Lions and at Oregon, notably.

A return for Moorhead does make a fair bit of sense in Fitz’s opinion.

“I think my biggest thing with Moorhead is when he came in in 2016, he said, ‘Hey, I’ve got the offense. Just let me take care of it.’ I think that is exactly what they need. They need a head coach of the offense. I think Manny Diaz does a really good job of that on the defensive side of the ball and it’s work for them. You have James do his thing, his CEO thing. And you’ve got two head coaches that can make it work, one on offense, one on defense. All of a sudden you’ve got a formula for a team that can maybe, maybe get over that hump. You never know, divisions are going away, schedules changing. But with that 12-team playoff, you’ve got a little more leeway there,” Fitz said.