Minnesota coach PJ Fleck discusses bringing Kirk Ciarrocca back after once losing him to Penn State
Indianapolis, Ind. — PJ Fleck completed the rare coaching feat this offseason of hiring back an old coordinator just two years after losing him. Penn State let go Kirk Ciarrocca after the 2020 season. Fleck only needed one more year to bring him back to Minnesota again.
It might have been easy to assume that Ciarrocca burnt a bridge in Minneapolis when he called Fleck on Christmas Day in 2019 to tell him he was going home to his native Pennsylvania and the Nittany Lions. But, it turns out that wasn’t the case.
“A lot of people asked me, were you hurt when Kirk left?” Fleck said at Big Ten Media Days Tuesday. “I said no. Besides letting me know on Christmas morning, I said there really wasn’t anything I was mad about. But I said, that’s not what loyalty is about, staying with somebody forever. Loyalty is about giving 100 percent committed job effort at that particular time, while you work for that person and while you work for that environment.
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“I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing Kirk did and take an opportunity. He’s from Pennsylvania. He had some family things going on, especially with his dad back home. It was a great opportunity for him, especially financially, and supported him 100 percent. We’ve had a great friendship that goes beyond football.”
Fleck spent last season as an analyst at West Virginia after he was replaced at Penn State by Mike Yurcich.
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Ciarrocca, Minnesota come to Penn State this fall
Ciarrocca will only have to wait until October to face the Nittany Lions. Minnesota travels to Penn State for the White Out game at Beaver Stadium on Oct. 22. The coordinator will have teamed up with returning starting quarterback Tanner Morgan a handful of times by then. Of course, they’ve done it before back in 2019. Morgan and other Gophers welcoming Ciarrocca back played a big role in Fleck’s ultimate decision to re-hire him.
“When the opportunity came back to hire him, him and I, it was easy,” Fleck said. “It was like yes. What I respect about Kirk is Kirk wanted to know how that would affect the kids, and I wanted to know how that would affect the kids. So you start asking people a little bit about how would you feel if somebody came back?
“And guys got really excited about that. I said, of course you might have to answer some questions in your first team meeting, but that will be easy after the first five minutes, and he did. We addressed it head on, talked about why he left, talked about why he’s back. I know we’re excited to have him. Tanner’s really excited to have him. He makes me a better football coach.”
Big Ten Media Days continue on Wednesday here at Lucas Oil Stadium.
