On Saturday, Joe Moorhead was announced as Penn State’s new offensive coordinator. Moorhead joins James Franklin’s staff after spending the previous four seasons as the head coach at Fordham University. While at Fordham, he took a Rams team that was 1-10 the season before he got there and guided them to three straight appearances in the FCS playoffs. This is a very good hire by James Franklin, in my opinion.
The 42-year-old Moorhead is a Pennsylvania native. Moorhead hails from Pittsburgh, and is a graduate of Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School. Moorhead is a graduate of Fordham University, where he played quarterback for the Rams from 1992-1995.
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After going 6-5 in his first season as Fordham head coach, Moorhead won at least 9 games each of the previous three seasons. Fordham went 12-2 in 2013, 11-3 in 2014, and then 9-3 this season. As I said above, all three of those seasons culminated in a playoff appearance. Furthermore, the Rams finished ranked 11th in the FCS in 2013 and 9th in 2014.
Overall as Fordham’s head coach Joe Moorhead culminated a 38-13 record, and he won the Patriot League championship in 2014 and 2015. Moorhead also brings experience as a FBS coach. He was an assistant coach at Akron from 2004-2008. Then from 2009 until he left for the Fordham job following the 2011 season, Moorhead was the offensive coordinator at Connecticut. This included being Connecticut’s offensive coordinator when the Huskies won the Big East in 2010.
During Moorhead’s time at Akron he also helped the Zips offense make serious strides. In 2008 Akron was one of 17 schools to rank in the top 50 nationally in rushing, passing, total, and scoring offense. Also during that 2008 season the Zips were the most improved team in the country in terms of total offense.
On top of being a very bright offensive mind Moorhead also brings recruiting ties to crucial recruiting areas for Penn State. As a Pittsburgh native Moorhead has recruiting ties to Western Pennsylvania, he has ties in New England from his time at Connecticut, and ties in New Jersey from his time at Fordham.
Western Pennsylvania, New England, and New Jersey are all vital recruiting areas for Penn State. If the Nittany Lions are going to return to college football prominence, they have to recruit these areas well.
Last season Fordham’s offense ranked 20th in the FCS in passing offense (272.3 yards per game), 42nd in rushing offense (180.9 yards per game), and 19th in total offense (453.3 yards per game). Fordham also converted 50 percent of its third downs last year, which was good for 17th best in the FCS, and this is a massive difference from the Nittany Lions who ranked 123rd in the FBS in third down conversion rate this past season.
Another stat of note is that Fordham quarterback Kevin Anderson had a great season for the Rams in 2015. Anderson threw for 3,183 yards which was good for 7th best in the FCS. Developing quarterbacks and having a strong passing attack should not be an issue under Moorhead, especially with the weapons Penn State has at wide receiver.
During his time at Fordham Moorhead also made NCAA history. In 2013 Fordham became the first team in NCAA history to have a 4,000 yard passer, two 1,000 yard receivers, and a 1,000 yard rusher all in the same season. That is extremely impressive.
The offense that Moorhead ran at Fordham is very similar to what Oklahoma State has run the past few seasons under Mike Gundy. Moorhead is a coach that has a run first spread philosophy. However, as was evident by the success of Kevin Anderson last season, Moorhead will also throw the ball when it fits the offense.
One final thing I really like about Moorhead’s offense is he makes a concentrated effort to get his playmakers the ball in space. This was always a big complaint of mine about John Donovan. Penn State has some very good to great playmakers in players such as Saquon Barkley, Chris Godwin, Saeed Blacknall, and Brandon Polk among others, but Donovan’s offense did not get them the ball in space enough. This should not be an issue with Coach Moorhead.
With this offense we should see plenty of up-tempo to no huddle being run. Moorhead’s offense will only feature a handful of formations, but he runs a lot of different plays off of these formations (for this think Chip Kelly at Oregon).
This offense will be a lot different than anything else that is run in the Big Ten East and I like that. Penn State does not have the personal capable of overpowering teams like Ohio State, Michigan, or Michigan State. However, they have good enough athletes to out-scheme such teams.
Joe Moorhead is not a flashy hire for Penn State as offensive coordinator, but it is a very good hire in my opinion. Moorhead is a very, very bright and innovative offensive mind who did a great job of doing more with less at Fordham. When he was at Fordham Moorhead was lacking talent and had to out- coach and out-scheme defenses to be successful, a lack of talent will not be an issue at Penn State.
If you would like to hear Coach Moorhead talk about his offensive schemes and strategy, check out this video. Get excited Nittany Lion fans, this is an excellent hire by James Franklin and company. Welcome to Happy Valley, coach!