Former Penn State coordinator Joe Moorhead looks back on Justin Fields' decommitment, new 2024 offers go out: Newsstand
Happy Friday, Penn State fans. In our final newsstand of the week, former offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead discussed a call that he’ll never forget. We’ll also look at a handful of new scholarship offers that went out on Thursday.
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Penn State fans will always wonder what could’ve been if current Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields had stuck with his original commitment and came to Penn State. Fans still discuss it on message boards to this day, six years later.
On a recent podcast with Saturday Down South, former offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead was asked if there was a specific quarterback during his career he would’ve liked to coach. He immediately replied with Fields, which was followed by a question asking him to detail what that call was like when Fields decommitted. Moorehead detailed it all, even admitting that his son cried.
“It was during the summer. We were at a travel baseball game for my youngest son. The game ended and we went to a restaurant at Penn State to grab lunch and the call came,” Moorhead said. “When the conversation begins with, ‘Coach, do you have a second to talk,’ it’s usually not heading down the right path. So, I walked out and Justin kind of explained his reasoning and what he was going to do. I certainly didn’t like it, or understand it, but how a coach reacts to you when you decommit is usually a sign of how he’ll coach you if you came to the school.”
“My youngest one, he’s a freshman in high school now, I gave him the news and when we got home, he locked himself in his room and was crying. I had to go in and console him because he was crying for about an hour-and-a-half when we lost Justin.”
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Moorhead later added, “I had developed such a great relationship with Pablo, his dad, mom, step-mom and Justin. He was staying at home to play for Georgia and his sister was going there to play softball. It’s kind of like when you have to inform your team you’re taking another job. You don’t want them to like it, but to a certain extent, they understand it. Certainly, you don’t want to lose a player of Justin’s caliber, but the reasoning behind his decision-making, if you’re being honest with yourself, it’s hard to fault him.”
Penn State’s current coaches extended two new scholarship offers in the Class of 2024 Thursday. One of those offers was to offensive tackle Gage Ginther from Fort Collins, Col. Listed at 6-foot-6, 280 pounds, Ginther currently holds a three-star rating. Colorado, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Nebraska, Tennessee, UCLA and USC are among his top offers so far.
Maryland linebacker Keyshawn Flowers also picked up an offer on Thursday. Listed at 6-foot-2, 215 pounds, Flowers has earned more than 20 scholarship offers in less than two months. Some of the top schools to offer include Oklahoma, Miami, NC State, Notre Dame, Pitt, USC and Virginia Tech.
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Quote of the Day
“I knew we had to get those guys up there for the White Out. Jon Jon’s mom and dad came and they absolutely loved it. They’re head over heels about Penn State. Things are looking great as far as Penn State goes with Jon Jon and his family.”
– Mandarin DB coach Cavonte Campbell on four-star CB Jon Mitchell
